On January 1st, many people make resolutions for the new year, such as to go to the gym every day. You can’t help noticing that gyms suddenly become much more crowded. But by February 1st, most people have abandoned their resolutions. Gyms become empty.
Sometime between January 1st and February 1st, people realize that they don’t really care that much about their New Year’s resolutions. In many cases, it’s because they chose their resolutions for the wrong reasons. This applies not just to New Year’s resolutions, but anything people do just because they think they should.
Think about why you do what you do
Maybe they think they’re supposed to exercise, so they decide that’s what they should focus on. But regardless of the wonderful benefits of exercise, you won’t stick with it if it doesn’t support something that truly matters to you.
This goes for exercising, losing weight, reading, writing, socializing, or anything else. Just because something is beneficial doesn’t mean it’s right for you. And one of the biggest mistakes you can make is focusing on the wrong things.
We have to accept that we can’t do everything. It’s not just a matter of time management, although that’s certainly part of it. We have a limited amount of resources such as time, patience, energy, and support from others, and we have to decide how we’ll use our limited resources. We have to prioritize.
Define your priorities
So decide what your priorities are. Don’t just blow this off by saying you want “happiness” or “success.” That’s far too vague to be helpful. Spend some time thinking about what you really want in life, and be specific.
If one of your priorities is “happiness,” fine. What specifically does this entail? What makes you happy? This is one of the most important questions you could ever answer, because everything else follows from this.
Enjoy the journey as well as the destination
We know how to eat an elephant: one bite at a time. So be sure that you enjoy your day to day life, instead of doing only what you think you have to do, or obsessing about the ultimate outcome.
Maybe you decide that to you, the ultimate happiness is having your own private island. And that’s fine; there are no right or wrong answers here. But remember that the private island is not a priority per se. You merely came up with the private island as a means of pursuing your actual priority of happiness. Don’t focus so much on a goal that you lose sight of why you want to achieve the goal.
If your priority is happiness, then your daily actions should support that priority right now, regardless of whether some future goal is achieved. Maybe right now, a cup of hot chocolate will make you happy. By having some hot chocolate now, you’re satisfying your priority of happiness. That doesn’t stop you from working towards your private island, but it makes the journey a lot more fun.
Focus on what really matters
If going to the gym every day is not fun for you, maybe you shouldn’t be doing that. Yes, it could bring you terrific results over time, but what is your real reason for doing it?
Is it because you want to have a long, happy life? OK, then focus on having a long, happy life. If you don’t like going to the gym, then how is it going to make you happy? It might increase your lifespan, but if you’re spending that extra time doing something you don’t enjoy, then what do you get from living longer?
Focusing on your real priorities might give you a better solution than focusing on what you think you’re supposed to do. For example, maybe another one of your priorities is spending time with friends. Maybe then, you and a friend could work out together just a few times a week.
OK, you might be breaking your resolution to go to the gym every day, but you’re spending time on what you’ve identified as your priorities, which is what really matters anyway. Because when your life is directed at what matters to you, you can’t go wrong.
About the writer: Hunter Nuttall wants you to stop sucking and live a life of abundance. Visit his site to learn how to improve your life and your income.
I think that mostly people abandon their New Year’s resolutions not because they realise that their goals are not what they want, but because they are too lazy or not motivated enough to achieve them.
They try to explain to themselves that their goals are just not worth achieving, although on the deeper level they know that their bad habits are the main reason behind quitting.
I think that we break our commitments for a few reasons, but one of the main reasons is that we associate a lot of negative thoughts and emotions to the action that we had committed to taking. If we didn’t we would have been taking action all along.
We normally follow through and take consistent action when our mind keeps focus on the consequences or what we don’t want in a situation and in contrast, has been convinced that taking action will avoid the consequences and in lockstep, give us an extremely positive, desired result.
So if we focus in for a moment on the feelings we had when we decided to work out (sluggish, tired, weak, depressed). These are states of body in mind that in that moment, we had reached a threshold against. We said ”that’s it…I’ve had it!” and we decided that come the new-year, yes! I will work out every single day and not eat any junk food and then I’ll feel great! But then, after a few days of working out, we forgot about the pain that we felt on that day we had made our initial decision to work out. The thoughts and especially the feelings of that moment of pain that triggered our threshold faded – and with that, so did fade our desire to make the change last.
I think we need to get back to that place when we reached threshold. The only way to do it is to feel the emotions again. Emotion is the key. Gather up and focus on enough emotion inside of you and you will take action. The key is to be able to remember the state of body and mind you were in at the time you made the decision.
To help this, I would write down a few strong reasons why you want to make the change. What negative emotions will you be able to get rid of by taking consistent action? What positive emotions will you gain by taking consistent action?
Using the example of working out, I don’t think we work out just to look good, or know that we are doing the right think by increasing our longevity. We want to work out because of the feelings or states that we want to experience in our lives. In other words, by looking good, you will feel sexy, strong, unstoppable, and confident which ultimately gives you a sense of certainty, self confidence and significance. So I think it’s feelings that we want to avoid or have that are where our focus needs to be. This can make the difference if we learn how to use it to our advantage.
I like the idea that starting with the little things can be a way to enjoy the journey as well as contribute to your goals. It’s similar to the idea that if you want to be happy, start by being happy now.
Good post, also reminded a bit about Tal Ben Shahar’s fantastic work (and his classes at Harvard) on Happiness:
- the hedonist: seek pleasure now, don’t mind consequences
- the rat racer: present sacrifice for future benefit
- the nihilist: present sacrifice that generates more sacrifice in the future!
- the happy person!: does things that he/she enjoys in the present and that also bring future benefit!
Personally, unfortunately so many times I fall under the rat racer mode… this post is a great way to remind us not to do it!
I’ll tell ya – the gym is busy where I am in Mississauga, Canada – but then again, it’s not February yet
“if you’re spending that extra time doing something you don’t enjoy, then what do you get from living longer?”
I love that, so true. And I’d also really like what you said about adding the little things to make the journey more enjoyable. It’s not like we or I guess I should speak for myself, I don’t know these things, but sometimes I can forget and I can get lost in the routine, so thanks for the reminder : )
Thanks for helping me think about a my purpose. I have been wondering if it is all that necessary to have a grand scheme as long as I am living according to my values and being happy.
Define, define, define! Without something concrete to aim at it’s impossible to ever reach – by definition the target just isn’t there.
The human brain is brilliant at handeling abstract concepts, it’s the reason language exists – a sting of wiggly lines strung together to form a pattern that’s actually meaningful to the mind.
But at the same time, the brain is just rubbish at handling other abstract concepts, especially when it’s a goal like “I want get be fit” or “I want to get rich”
These things need to be nailed down to concrete stepwise goals, otherwise the brain will just discard this abstract concept in a short amount of time
Patrick
veryevolved.com
Hi Hunter,
If we want to find our priorities in life, we should list out our values and stack them according to what we feel that is the most important to us. That will help us to sort out our priorities in life.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
I also think fear keeps us from following through on commitments. For example, writing fiction is a priority to me. It makes me happy and it follows through on my goal of getting published. Many days, however, pass without me writing – why? Because I’m scared that I’m going to mess up along the way and waste a whole bunch of effort.
If I just looked at it from the point of priorities, then I’d question my commitment to wanting to get published, but when I add in fear, I see what the real problem is and work at ways of diminishing or working through the fear.
But that’s a whole other topic and this post is an excellent place to start.
Great post Hunter. I escpecially like:
“If your priority is happiness, then your daily actions should support that priority right now,”
Also, from your feedbak, I especially like:
“- the happy person!: does things that he/she enjoys in the present and that also bring future benefit!”
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what you said is true, about knowing the ‘why’ we tend to pursue a certain dream. It might also explain why you find people who have great jobs but are miserable on the inside. Their reasons might be just wrong. I wrote a similar article titled: Living Your Childhood Dreams on
http://ignore-inc.blogspot.com/2008/12/living-your-childhood-dreams.html
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