The right way to write a resolution

Who does res­o­lu­tions any­more? We are all sophis­ti­cated and smart enough to know we can­not be fooled. Not again. (If you’ve ever pur­chased a 12-month gym mem­ber­ship, you know what I’m talk­ing about.) We’re wise to our own ways.

Just trust me for a moment and I’ll show you that res­o­lu­tions can actu­ally work. This process can be enjoy­able; it can be pain­less and if you fol­low these sim­ple steps you’ll soon be push­ing your credit card over the counter at another fit­ness centre.

Here are the steps I’ve fol­lowed since I was 19 and they’ve always worked pretty well for me.

Step 1

Start nice. Rather than jump­ing right into it and beat­ing your­self up about that tubby waist­line of yours, we’re going to come at this from a dif­fer­ent direc­tion entirely. Let’s start with a fond look back over the past year. Ask your­self some nice ques­tions. Has this been a good year? What was the best thing about this year? What am I so glad I did? Is it kind of sur­pris­ing how much I was able to do in just one year?

Start­ing smooth like this is the most impor­tant step in the whole process. You’ve worked hard this year. You deserve a lit­tle appre­cia­tive self-talk. This will also remind us how good our lives really are, which makes us happy. And, it’s giv­ing us valu­able insight into what makes a good year, for us.

If this hasn’t been the best year, think of the best times you’ve had in your life in general.

Step 2

While your brain is in this happy place, notice what you’re really happy about. What kinds of thing do you really appre­ci­ate? Again, what is a good year for you?

If it helps, a good year for me involves some­how grow­ing closer to my fam­ily and friends. It involves learn­ing and shar­ing mean­ing, and try­ing to be gen­er­ous –to build my com­mu­nity. This is how I think of a good year.

Step 3

If you haven’t already writ­ten some­thing down, now’s the time. Instead of writ­ing a big to do list, try writ­ing down a cou­ple of tips for how to live a good year. Some lessons learned.

Daphne at Joy­ful Days has taken this a step fur­ther and writ­ten her own per­sonal creed: Think deeply. Speak gen­tly. Love much. Laugh a lot. Work hard. Give freely. And be kind.

Gretchen at the Hap­pi­ness Project has writ­ten down her per­sonal com­mand­ments: Be Gretchen. Let it go. Act the way I want to feel. Do it now. Be polite and be fair. Enjoy the process. Spend out (by which she means to stop hoard­ing and to ‘trust in abun­dance’). Iden­tify the prob­lem. Lighten up. Do what ought to be done. No cal­cu­la­tion. There is only love.

My creed is hid­den in Step Two.

Step 4

If this isn’t enough for you and you want to write some REAL res­o­lu­tions, then now is the time for that. Go ahead and write them.

My advice, as always, is: “Be good to your­self” Is, what you writ­ing down on paper, what you REALLY want to do, or just what you think you will want to HAVE DONE. Make your gains as pain­less as possible.

Step 5

Have you for­got­ten some­thing? Briefly think through the major areas of your life: hap­pi­ness, health, finances, rela­tion­ships and lifestyle. Are there any cor­rec­tions you should make?  (I.e. should you start sav­ing for retirement?)

And there you have it.

Step 6 (read only in case of failure):

If you’re back to your naughty ways again by Feb­ru­ary, don’t worry too much. (I know this doesn’t apply to you, but it might help the other guy read­ing this. Any­way, I told you only to read this part in case of fail­ure). There is a rea­son we do this every year.

If you’ve done Steps 1 to 5 and you’re sure your goals and/or creed are right for you, then yours is a moti­va­tion prob­lem. Step 6 is here to help.

Lack of moti­va­tion means either you don’t have a clear pic­ture of what you want or you don’t have a clear pic­ture of the con­se­quences of fail­ure. We’ll fix this with two more activities:

Pos­i­tive moti­va­tion:

Develop a clear pic­ture of the better-future, when you’ve reached your goal. You’re pub­lished author and you can hand out your own book as a Christ­mas present next year, look­ing jus­ti­fi­able proud of what a genius you are.

Neg­a­tive motivation:

Now focus on the worse-future if you don’t meet your goal. You feel like a com­plete fail­ure, in writ­ing as in every­thing. You are not the per­son you thought you were after all. You are unwor­thy of love. This is manip­u­la­tive, but it’s okay because you are the one manip­u­lat­ing your­self. You are only doing this to help.

Now you should under­stand why your res­o­lu­tions are impor­tant and be well on your way to los­ing that big tum of yours.

Happy New Year!