Right about week 3 of straight Christmas music, I think I start feeling like this cat a little bit.
Somehow, the barrage of Christmas and holiday music is passing and we are preparing for New Year’s already. I’ve always been of the opinion that holidays are just days on the calendar until we internalize what they mean to us and project that inspiration outward, and the same is true of New Year’s Eve. Everyone celebrates differently, but to me there is something very cool about recognizing the passing of time and appreciating the past as you look forward to the future.
More sparklers!!!
For many people, New Year’s is a time to herald in changes or usher out lifestyles that are no longer helpful. Some of us choose to make resolutions to improve our health or quality of life.
I’ve been pondering lately on this ritual of resolutions, and here’s what I’ve found:
Many cultures and religious sects have a yearly “reflection” tradition
The purpose of this tradition falls largely under the category of making an individual promise to perform an act of self-improvement or to do something nice (ie, opening doors for others; forgiving more readily; etc)
Most participants of this tradition fail
Feeling overwhelmed already?
Yup, you read that right: MOST participants fail to achieve the promises they make at the beginning of the year. I’m talking a whopping 88% of resolution-makers never achieve the goals they set. And only 52% of participants feel confident of success at the time of making the promise**. With odds like these, why the heck do we keep perpetuating this ritual?
There are a lot of factors that we could consider when answering that question, and each variable will carry a different amount of influence for each individual. That being said, the biggest factors tend to come from the powers of social influence, tradition, and guilt.
Socially, it’s largely expected that individuals will make some sort of ‘promise for self-improvement’ and you may feel stigmatized if you decide not to follow that tradition. As a species, we humans do have a tendency to categorize and enjoy the company of those who behave in similar ways to ourselves. If we feel pressured to make a resolution, we’ll likely start pressuring others to do the same without first stopping to analyze why we’re behaving that way in the first place. A perpetuation of social pressures leads to a great number of our cultural behaviors, both good and bad. Suffice it to say that we could all use some introspection on the topic.
Tradition and social influence go hand-in-hand, yet they are somewhat different. Social influence comes from the expectations of others, whereas tradition can come from your expectation for yourself or how things ought to be. If you’ve ALWAYS made a resolution, it will probably feel like something you MUST do, even if you don’t have an inspiration to promise anything. And promises made without a propelling inspiration behind them will almost certainly fail.
Guilt is our last factor, and it’s a doozy. We feel guilty for any number of things in all areas of our lives, even things we shouldn’t feel responsible or guilty for. As a culture, we are incredibly stressed, particularly at this time of year, and our stress levels often compound our guilt further. It’s a vicious circle of negative emotions, and nothing good can come from their volatile combination. Guilt is a useless emotion that weighs us down; consider the difference in these two statements:
“I feel guilty about the decision I made.” “I am disappointed in the result of my decision.”
One of those statements has the power to change, learn, and grow. One of the statements makes us feel small and ashamed. I’ll let you decide which one is healthier.
So I leave you with this thought as we head toward our various New Year’s Eve celebrations:
The only one who knows what changes your life needs is YOU.
Commercials for weight loss or self-help seminars don’t know you and don’t know what you need. Your friends and family have the best intentions for you, but even they don’t know what you need. You are the only one with the answers, even if you don’t know what they are yet. With some introspection, prayer, meditation, or whatever else works for you, you might just start to figure out what it is you want your life to look like.
(Goal setting)*(Goal achievement strategy)=SUCCESS! The equation is the easy part. The execution of it is up to you.
My follow-up blog will cover some tips for goal-achievement that works for any time of the year to help you be successful! See you next time!
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