Three Ways To Make Your Resolution Stick
Another year has come and gone.
It’s officially 2018.
Crazy, right?
It’s this time of year that everyone is making New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions to lose weight, break habits, make changes, and pursue goals that, in the end, they believe will lead to a more fulfilling life. Likely some of you have already implemented some resolutions of your own that will lead you closer to your goals.
I’m Type-A and competitive, which means that everything about resolutions resonates with me. I love the idea of having a regular rhythm of introspection and innovation, where you ask “how am I really” and “how can I be the best version of myself?” But if you’re not careful a few things can happen that stop resolutions from becoming a reality. For example:
01. You settle for surface goals that don’t actually deal with the inward issues.
So you start a diet in hopes of shaving off those pesky 20lbs because you think, “If I could just be thinner than I’ll be secure and happy.” But then you lose the 20lbs and realize you’re just as insecure and unhappy and that extra weight you were carrying really wasn’t the real problem.
Or you decide to quit your job believing that the grass will be greener on the other side. So you get a new job but still feel the same old heartache and changing the scenery around you didn’t change the struggle within you.
Or you make it a goal to travel more and explore places you’ve never been. Because if you could just break free from the monotony of your life then maybe you’d finally experience the satisfaction that you’re craving deep inside. So you travel, and it’s amazing, but then you return, and your family still annoys you, your past still haunts you and your future still confuses you. You left your baggage for a while but it was there waiting for you when you got back. You traveled the world around you, but failed to travel to the world within you in order to see what’s really going on in there.
The purpose of a resolution is to resolve something and you miss that point entirely if you instead use resolutions as a means to attempt to run from something.
02. You succeed at dreaming big things but fail at hustling in the small things.
Another reason that many New Year’s resolutions fizzle out in less than a month of their start is that many will succeed at dreaming big, but fail at hustling in the small things. Coming up with a new year’s resolution is not very difficult because coming up with the dream is the easiest part.
It’s easy to make a goal to lose 30 lbs.
It’s easy to make a goal to eliminate your debt.
It’s easy to make a goal to write the book.
It’s easy to make a goal to land your dream job.
It’s easy to make a goal to say you’re going to take your faith to the next level.
It’s easy to make a goal for your marriage thrive more than ever before.
It’s easy to make a goal to ________________________.
Dreaming big is not difficult. Even now, you have dreams in your heart of what could be or should be in your life. But the problem is for the dream to become tangible:
You’ll have to stop eating so many bad carbs and make time to exercise.
You’ll have to say “no” to some things you really want to save money.
You’ll have to discipline yourself to sit down and write.
You’ll have to send out resumes, do interviews and risk being turned down.
You’ll have to begin fueling your faith with prayer, the Scriptures, and practicing the way of Jesus which will require sacrifice at times.
You’ll have to make time for date nights, buy the flowers, go to counseling and serve your spouse regularly.
In other words, you’ll need to start to hustle in all these small things to see the big thing, the dream, become a reality.
And that’s the problem for many. We want to Amazon Prime our resolutions, but it simply doesn’t work that way. Any overnight success will tell you that they became an overnight success through years of consistent and committed hustle.
So how can you make sure that this year’s resolutions don’t share the same fate as resolutions in the past? Here are a few ideas:
1. Know your why.
I know you know what you want to do. But why do you want to do it? This has become a regular question I pose to the team I get to serve at Canvas. Why? Because it’s so easy to start doing a lot of what’s and lose sight of why you’re doing it in the first place. And what I’ve discovered is that a what without a why has a very short shelf-life. Because any what worth doing will not be easy, and it is the why that will provide you the fuel necessary to power through when the going gets tough.
You want to lose weight? Why? For me currently, I want to lose 25lbs-30lbs. Why? I have a daughter now, and I want her to have to keep up with me instead of me trying to keep up with her. I want to surf with her, run around with her, and be an example to her that your health matters. So when I crave that pizza or I don’t feel like exercising, I look at my daughter and am reminded why I need to do the what.
You have a dream. Great. So did the 60% of people who broke their resolutions in less than a month. Why is that dream worth pursuing? That’s the fuel that’ll keep you going.
2. What is step one?
Every resolution begins with step one. The problem is that many dreams never live to see the light of day because a person is stuck trying to figure out step seventeen. So because they can’t figure out how everything will work out, they get discouraged, and then eventually quit.
Every resolution begins with step one.
Then when you accomplish step one. Guess what you do next?
Step two.
But what about step thirty-eight?
Don’t worry about step thirty-eight. You’ll never get to step thirty-eight if you don’t do step one, then step two, and step three and so on.
You want to write a book? Maybe step one is crafting the big idea of the book. You can worry about the flow, chapter titles and everything else in other steps. Just start with step one.
You want to get married? Awesome. Maybe step one is writing down your non-negotiable’s for a future spouse (this will save you a lot of time and stress by the way). But what if that person doesn’t exist? How will you meet them? Should you use an app or just sort of let it happen? What if my parens hate them? What if they have a weird last name?
Stop. Just start with step one.
3. Marry the mission, date the method.
This one has saved me a lot of stress. I’m a planner. I don’t like when things aren’t clear. But here’s a thing I’ve learned about life.
Life is stressful sometimes.
Things don’t always happen the way you think.
The path to the reward is littered with risks.
Can I get an amen?
This is why you need to marry the mission (the why) and date the method (the what). Sometimes you will set out for a goal and realize that your plan isn’t going to work. Don’t sacrifice the mission because you’re too stubborn to ditch the method. Make the tweaks, change the plan, learn from your mistakes, admit when it’s not working and break the method’s heart.
Just don’t divorce the mission.
Imagine ending 2018 stronger than how you started? What if this year you determined to make it the year that you didn’t just let resolutions come-and-go. Could you imagine how doing this would set you up for an even greater future?
It is possible, I promise. But it’s going to take you
knowing your why,
starting with step one,
and choosing to marry the mission but date the method.
Here’s to an amazing 2018. May it be your best year yet!
