How do you make a New Year Resolution that’ll stick? The same way you stop a super tanker: Start early.
Life happens in increments. Little things build on little things until those little things are a goddam hulking Everest of habit and humanity that make the word ‘overhwelming’ an underwhelming descriptor.
And this opens the gates for the ‘Journey of a 1,000 miles stuff’ that everybody uses but I’m keeping it simple. Focused. One thing. One layer at a time. The same way I take a house apart that I want to remain standing and liveable. I don’t smash the shit out of it with a sledgehammer, I take it apart in the reverse order it was put together. There is a lot of ‘life’ in houses.
Anyway, the reason is so that the changes—and the mechanics and gear and habit and hard wiring—have time to accumulate. So that when the day comes to ‘change’, I don’t have to change my whole life in 24-hours. I just have to take a small, more manageable step, waaaay less terrifying step.
To make a DIY analogy: You don’t build a stud wall by throwing a pile of wood on the ground and screaming ‘WALL’. You put it together. One stick at a time until it is a wall. Then you lift it and nail it. THEN it’s a wall. Before that, it’s just talk.
So whatever life goal inspires you to think New Year Resolution—whether that’s an obstacle course race or being a more present parent—start putting the pieces in place. Now. One at a time. So you want to make the leap on January 1, start June 1 (or right after reading this:) Point is, months, not minutes, from the New Year Resolution day.
Examples that may or may not apply to you: New diet? Buy what you need (I cannot recommend the NutriBullet highly enough as a a bad diet disruptor). Learn how to use it. Try it out. So when the day comes, it’s not a soul-scorching change that’ll never stick.
Same goes for the fitness New Year Resolution: Buy everything first…whatever it is you’re doing: gym membership, walking shoes, yoga mat, shoes for Spartan Race. Have it ready before you start seeing the Quit this/Start that ads on TV. And know what to do with it.
One of those life truisms that’s running in the background of this whole thing is this: ‘People do not change because you tell them to. They change because they feel they must.’ And it simply doesn’t happen overnight.
My blog isn’t about telling you to change. It’s about how I changed. And will continue to try and change and improve. I have a little boy I love beyond measure. I have a daughter with whom I’d love to have a better relationship. And I have a wife who I promised I’d be there for. And I have myself. I think they’re all important enough for a few little changes brought on by a better me.
