When we talk about new year resolutions, our purpose is to either include a certain habit in our routine like – eating healthy, exercising, reading more, creating more discipline regarding a particular activity or we are trying to overcome some addiction of ours like – having a hard time restricting you tube usage, eating too much sugar, sleeping until late, going to sleep late etc.
A habit is, as Tom Wujec describes in ‘Mental Fitness’, “The tendency to do something without having to think about it”.
So, let me tell you this, RESOLUTIONS DON’T WORK…!
If we want to come out of the vicious circle of any unwanted or unproductive habit, we need to break the patterns, the patterns that our mind has gotten accustomed to.
Here are the steps that we can take to break those patterns…
FIND YOUR WHY
Before we commit ourselves to doing something or changing something, we need to ask ourselves this question – “why do we need to do what we want to do ?”
Why do we want to be better at something ? Is it for status ? Or you will get paid more at your workplace for learning some new skill that you normally wouldn’t like to do at all or it will add to your confidence, anything…!
That reason should be meaningful to YOU, not because it was suggested by someone.
You don’t HAVE TO lose weight.
You don’t HAVE TO gain muscles.
You don’t HAVE TO earn crazy money.
You don’t HAVE TO wake up at 4 or 5:30 am.
You don’t HAVE TO learn a foreign language and be great at it.
You don’t HAVE TO be great at socializing or any other thing because people might like that.
(Not talking about job criteria in any of the above examples)
But if you have a well-thought reason that holds some value to YOU, then go ahead.
We will have a hard time sticking to a routine to do something if we don’t have self-defined reasons to do those activities.
KEEP YOUR EXPECTATIONS LOW
We should have small deadlines. Sometimes, unrealistically high expectations might create boredom and act as a discouragement. So in the starting, small deadlines will make us come back to that activity the next day. As we track our path of doing that activity on a daily basis, it will build confidence and most importantly, it will create ‘familiarity’ to that task which will further solidify the idea that- it’s not something we are supposed to do. In fact it’s who we are …already!
Also, have patience and try not to create unnecessary ‘decision fatigue’. We can achieve all the things we want but not all at once. Apply your mind to one thing for some time and keep on adding other tasks with time, as you get comfortable with the first and the next one and so on.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS
Keeping a track of ‘where you started’ and ‘how far you have come’ will help you keep going with it.
Recently, my sister told me that she was annoyed with herself because she couldn’t perform a particular exercise and she felt discouraged to continue with the workout until I reminded her of the times when I used to almost drag her to the park. After 15 minutes or so, (Taking advantage of my focus in my own activity) she would find a bench to sleep on. And I still wonder “how come?”
Anyways, she wakes up around 6am these days and takes a walk for 30-45 minutes every day. That’s commendable considering her past habits, especially when no one is there to make her do so.
Point being, tracking the path of our very own journey will help us maintain the rhythm and the consistency that we need.
CELEBRATE SMALL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
No matter how small, do celebrate all of your accomplishments.
For example- giving yourself a hard time over the fact that you weren’t able to finish the task on time, but you worked according to the deadline on a daily basis, feeling guilty that you ate those two pastries, but you actually wanted to eat the whole fucking cake, You weren’t able to do those thirty repetitions of a particular set of exercise at the gym, as your sometimes ‘unrealistic’ trainer (who thinks one tool works for all) told to do. But you did thirteen of those even though you wanted to give up at five, you had a heated argument with someone (New Year resolution was – anger management) and now you are telling yourself that you couldn’t change. But if you did realize later that you went overboard and the same argument could be handled in a better way. That observation itself is part of progress, right?
So respect your victories over those daily inner battles which YOU only know about, recognize the small changes and celebrate them.
DITCH THE PERFECTION
Going for perfection in the starting can delay things. We might not get to those for years. Here are some impressive words by Napoleon Hill –
Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand and work with whatever tools you have at your command. And better tools will be found as you go along.
It can be applied to almost any area of our life. When we are planning to do something new, we delay things or break our momentum after getting discouraged by some factors. We question our ability to do that new task or worry about the resources. For example –
Not starting exercising because we don’t have those fancy sneakers or some fancy yoga pants!
Or breaking our momentum at the gym and not continuing with the simple exercises that we already know because we don’t have Arnold Schwarzenegger standing by our side screaming at us – what an embarrassment we are in the name of a fucking athlete!!
Or not sticking to healthy eating habits that we already know – as simple as eating those green looking leafy things that our childhood personal dietitians i.e. our parents had been telling us for years. But now when someone advises you, you are thinking that the diet is incomplete without apple cider vinegar or protein powder…!!
Act on what you already know and what you already have. You will find more assistance along the way and most importantly, you will get better with time at doing those things.
KEEP SHOWING UP
The most crucial factor while adding a new habit is- Routine. It builds momentum. So, in the beginning, even if you don’t feel like doing it, just keep showing up for that activity. Mark Manson wrote in one of his articles –
We can become successful at something without knowing what we are doing; we can become successful at something without having much particular talent at it. But we can never become successful at ANYTHING without taking action.
Also, few people have the drive or passion for something in the beginning. We have to work at it. Like a relationship, we must build it from scratch, piece by piece, until after years of brick and sweat it can stand on its own.
So things like – your job, exercise or developing a taste for a specific food item or anything that you believe you need to do, be it any habit, just keep showing up for that activity. Also regarding some behavioral change, just keep performing the ritual of doing that activity. David Bayer talked about this in an interview.
New choices lead to new behavior, new behavior will create new experiences, and new experiences will produce new emotions. New emotions will drive new thoughts and beliefs.
And that’s called – EVOLUTION…!! So, just by deciding something different, we can change our thought patterns. The whole machine will recalibrate itself. But it will demand practice with consistency.
We can teach our body what we have already learnt intellectually.
– meaning we know what we need to do, now we have to make our body do all of that. A person is not where he/she needs to be because he/she is not ready to give up something. That ‘something’ is different for everyone – comfort/familiar territories/self-image delusion/sleep/sugar/any recurring thought or behavior pattern which we know is hindering us on the path of moving in a positive direction!
JUST DO IT
On some days, almost nothing works. The only thing that can work though is – just do it.
This whole idea seems completely idiotic at first. ‘Not feeling yet doing it anyway’ will eliminate ‘the thinking time’ that our lazy mind uses to give birth to ‘unbeatable excuses’. Like the classic ‘snoozing system’. The time before we get our whiny ass out of the bed, is like a damn field of the most readily available excuses which leads to – ‘snooze’…!! Here is the reference that I find useful to deal with this.
Long time ago, I had my toenail removed. It was a minor surgery. The next day of the surgery, old dressing had to be changed. When the nurse tried to loosen the tape from the skin, I experienced excruciating pain. I asked her to remove it slowly which made things even worse. Seeing that for a while she removed that tape in one stroke. The pain was hellish but I have to admit that it was still better than my suggestion of removing the tape slowly.
Since then I have applied this to many areas of my routine. One of them is ‘waking up in the morning’. Whatever time suits your routine – 4am/6am/1pm/3pm or any other “o’clock” if your work demands are such. Choose one time and get out of those damn “covers of excuses”. Snoozing serves no purpose at all. First – it’s not productive from a ‘sleep cycle’ point of view (considering that a sleep cycle is approximately 90 minutes, an extra few minutes is not good for the brain). Second – it erodes our ‘limited’ source of willpower which we could use to exert ourselves for other important tasks. Wake-up time can be different for different people, but “snoozing” is productive for no one.
LOOK AT THE BIGGER PICTURE
While I was learning “how to drive a two-wheeler”, I had been facing a problem while taking “a turn”. After many unsuccessful and embarrassing attempts, I realized that the “turn” was difficult when I was focusing exactly at the turning point itself. But it got easier when I looked ahead on the road, just a couple of meters away from that “turning point”. It was smooth.
It, sure, was a weird epiphany. But if we apply that small idea to life in general, a “turn/change” is difficult if we focus too much on the present circumstances. But if we look at the bigger picture – “where we want to be at/what we want to achieve”, the turn/ the change will be easier. The drive to work for that goal will be more. It will motivate us. We need to believe in our end goal before we can see it happening. And beliefs are just decisions. We can change our beliefs just by deciding something different than what we usually do.
Personally, I have never made New Year resolutions. Whatever time of the year that is, I just decide to do something, fail at it, sometimes innumerable times, keep doing it until I get it right (only if it really means something to me but if it doesn’t, I will toss it ruthlessly).
The best way we can turn those so-called “resolutions” into a reality is by working on our mindset, our thought patterns. Observe the language you speak in with yourself. The way ‘resistance training’ helps us gain muscle strength by making our muscles work against the weight, INTENTIONAL MANIPULATION of our mental resources moves our mental muscles. It makes us resilient. Sometimes as difficult as– “trying to move from one state of mind to another (from a confused state of mind to a peaceful one)” or as simple yet complicated as asking yourself – “what can I learn from the people I get angry with very easily ?” These kinds of forceful ideas are like resistance training for our brain. Renowned neurosurgeon, Rahul Jandial, talks about this in an interview.
Diversity of thinking, one step ahead of what we are comfortable with will help our brain grow. Anything difficult that we have to think about is good for our brain.
Here I’m talking about outcome based creative thinking and not reason based stressful thinking. These mental exercises, though seemingly unrelated, have profound effects on our behavior in the long run. When we are finding it hard to change some habit, we are looking at the surface. The core reason is that we are set in our ways. We are too rigid to try something different, especially in terms of thought and mindset. If we are flexible in our thought pattern, new habits and skills are not that difficult.
This human existence, this long, tiring yet beautiful life ahead of us is going to make us exhausted sometimes. Observe your thought patterns, recognize your inner struggles, keep working to overcome those and keep standing by yourself. Take care of your body and especially your mind!
