New Years Resolutions

I don't make New Years resolutions. If I need to make a change in my life I do it when I need to instead of waiting until the New Year.

Why must we set a date to make a change in our lives? If your goal is to lose weight, quit smoking or be more successful, why wait for the first day of the next year to start? Is this day magical? Will it help you stick to your resolution? Probably not.

That sounds like procrastination to me. I don't mean to sound cynical, but if you need to make a change in your life, why wait until the new year?

However, this is the beginning of a new year and maybe you have made a New Years resolution. I'm not knocking that decision, but are you prepared to stick with it to reach your goal?

First of all, your resolution has to be something that you truly want and something that you are passionate about doing. If you are only making a resolution because "it's the new year", it will never work.

People make New Years resolutions because they want to better themselves or their lives. They want to make a change and the beginning of a new year may seem like the best time to do that. It's a fresh start, a new beginning, the first day of the rest of your life! Sounds great, doesn't it?

What is it that you want? Some of the most common New Years resolutions are:

• Lose weight/eat healthier
• Quit smoking/stop bad habits
• Get a better job/education
• Get out of debt/save money

Lets look at these one by one. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

Losing weight and eating healthy

It is so common around Thanksgiving to say, "after the holidays are over, I'm going to lose weight and start eating healthier". In the meantime, over the holidays, you pork out on mashed potatoes and gravy, Christmas cookies and all the other fine fixin's. You have succeeded in gaining an extra 20 pounds. You start dieting on January 1st and by January 3rd you have had enough, get discouraged and forget about your resolution.

Quitting smoking or stopping other bad habits

Just like in the above example, from the time you decide to kick the habit until the first of the year, you have succeeded in smoking 4,876 more cigarettes before you actually start to stop smoking. Does that make any sense? Has that really helped you reach a goal?

Getting a better job or going to school

You want a better job, so at the beginning of the year you fill out application after application. Guess what? So has everybody else that made that same resolution. That adds up to more competition in the job market. After a few months when you haven't gotten any job offers, you resign yourself to staying at your present job and give up job hunting.

Getting out of debt and saving money

So you have made the resolution to get out of debt. In the meantime, as you are piling all your Christmas packages into the car, after you have put the purchases on your credit card, your monthly minimum payment has just went up. Therefore your idea of saving money has just went down the toilet.

Not all scenarios end up this way and some people are successful with their New Years resolutions. So what can you do to make sure that you will reach your goal?

According to the Wikipedia article, studies show that only 12 percent of the people who made a New Years resolution kept it. Another study indicates that 78 percent of those who make a New Years resolution fail. 

Those aren't very good odds.

The reason that New Years resolutions fail is because the majority of people do not want it bad enough to stick with it. You may say you really want something, but those are just words. Two old sayings come to mind, "The proof is in the pudding" and "Actions speak louder than words". You can talk all you want to about doing something, but actually putting forth the effort is what counts. 

An example:

Let's say that your favorite musician is performing in a rock concert in a nearby city. You absolutely love this musician. He is your all time favorite. You must be there. This is his first concert in 10 years. You will do anything to go. And you probably will. You may play hooky from work, you may drive for 4 hours to get there, you may even have to borrow gas money from a friend, but you will be there. You do this because this is something that is important to you and you will do anything in your power to get it.

What if you were that passionate about losing weight or getting a new job? You would do anything in your power to get it.

New Years resolutions fail because it is not really something you are passionate about. You may say you want to do it, but those are just words. Until you find it inside yourself to do whatever it takes to reach your goal, you will fail.

When the time come that you are as determined to reach your goal as you are about going to the rock concert, then you will do it. At that point, you will be able to reach your goal because your heart is in it.

The best part is that it doesn't have to be at the beginning of the year. You can start making changes in your life whenever you want.