Don't make a New Year's Resolution
And today I want to talk to you about why you should not make a New Year's resolution. I have three reasons why you shouldn't and a suggestion for what you should do instead.
Reason # 3: for not making a New Year's resolution. Most of the time we picked New Year's resolutions things that we hate and things that we would never want to do. If we had wanted to start exercising, we would have started back in June. I didn't think that by waiting until January and setting a new year's resolution, we're going to start exercising. And we don't, so there's no reason to set a New Year's resolution for something you're absolutely going to hate to do because of Reason number two not to send a New Year's resolution.
Reason #2: Is the fact that 80% of people who created a New Year's resolutions fail by February. So basically, what we have done is made failure acceptable socially. And it sets the precedents that it's no big deal if you don't complete whatever it is that you made your New Year's resolution. I think that's unhealthy.
Reason #1: for you to not make a New Year's resolution. Success or failure can become a habit. If you've been setting New Year's resolution and at the beginning of the year by February, you failed and you're like oh, I didn't get that done. Then the next time something comes up you are okay with maybe not competing it as well because all I didn't make that New Year's resolution. Even if you're not consciously thinking that it's an underlying current and I think that anytime you can set yourself up for success and starting the successful loop versus the failure loop. You should definitely do that all right so well if you decided not to set a New Year's resolution. I still think you need to create a life plan.
What to do instead: I love the quote from Jim Rohn and he says “If you don't design your own life plan chances are you going to fall into somebody else's plan and guess what they have planned for you not much.” Everybody else is busy living their own lives; they don't have time to make a plan for how your life should turn out. But you get to lead the most amazing project of your life, your life! You should definitely have a plan for that. There's a book that I read recently and asked the question if you were living your perfect life in 10 years what would it look like? I've changed it just a little bit to say hey if you're living your ideal life both personally and professionally what would it look like?
When you think about that question and you start to dream about that question. And you decide in my perfect life would be my spouse and I would go dancing once a month, or I would own a house where my kids could come and hang out after they got done with college. Then you take that perfect life dream and you work backward and you say, “you know what if I want to go dancing with my spouse once a month that means that I've got to get in better shape so I can keep up with that person on the dance floor. Then you have a reason to exercise.
A reason that's bigger than a New Year's resolution.
It's bigger than a one-time goal.
It's a life. You have a reason to do it because it's part of your life plan. So I would encourage you over the next week to take the time to build your life plan. If you want to share it with me, I'd be happy to read it. I have my own life plan that I live by and I can tell you this having a life plan is amazing. It doesn't mean that you don't change things every once in a while but what it does mean is that you're living a life that is the type of life that you want to live all right.