Well its 2020. We have a mixed blend of optimism and gloom ahead as we view a new year and new decade coming including the imponderables of post-election fall out, Brexit, climate change, the breakdown of our political systems, the list goes on.
Yes, we live in a fascinating age, where with populist politics and climate denial, we vacillate between incredulity and existential anxiety on almost a daily basis. That said, as hope springs eternal, people will start 2020 with the usual resolutions that most research suggests rarely lasts more than six weeks. New Year’s resolutions are fascinating cultural behaviour. As a point of cultural celebration, we often collectively view the New Year as an opportunity for personal renewal however, this collective approach rarely achieves sustained change.
Your resolution, for example, may be to do more exercise, anothers perhaps to keep their desk tidier. One does not particularly support the other. The creation process for our resolutions themselves are suspect, typically shared with others towards the end of the year with copious amounts of alcohol late at night. Not a great foundation for sensible behavioural change!
To bring significant change in our life, we need to do it thoughtfully, not at the stroke of midnight at Decembers end. Change comes by a balance of immediacy and personal resourcefulness and ensures planning, not procrastination. When we consider all of those factors, the arbitrary intention to change at the years end, is usually unrealistic.
We also often mistakenly try to get rid of something such as a bad habit, a self-defeating pattern or something that is at odds with our health. This is too abstract to be effective; we have to choose something acquirable and move towards that goal. Stopping smoking is not going to be as effective a goal as being healthier. Watching less television is not going to be as effective as ensuring one gets out twice a week. Change needs to be concrete, measurable and achievable.
These factors contribute to our resolutions being replete with good intentions but are effectively a road to hell in the context of positive change.
We need to have a clear vision of the change we want, assess the resources we need to get to it, look for the support we need to encourage us to get there and how we account to ourselves for progress. The timing of the change implementation must be considered too. Otherwise it’s a bit like deciding to run a marathon, whilst you still have your leg in a plaster, have no trainers, no equipment and then your house was flooded yesterday!
Effective change is a thoughtful process that needs to be linked to our conscience and selfexamination, not a simple arbitrary ritual born of culture and tradition in the festive season. So once again, the closing seconds of 2019, saw most resolutions doomed from their inception, often only to be revisited 12 months later.
Consider the change you want in your life and start now. Parts of that change may not be enacted for months to come, but it comes from planning and resolve, not a New Year’s resolution.
May 2020 confer every blessing. I invite you however, to a personal change “revolution”, rather than any “resolutions”!
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