It’s time for resolutions! New year, new me! Instead, why not try to do everything we can each day? The consistency of
doing everything we can each and every day pays more dividends than making trendy resolutions we can’t and won’t keep. Don’t believe me? Ask a gym owner.
We can only do what we can during the present moment. Which actually becomes a lot. It may not seem like it, but work on a blog a little bit each day, or work out once per day, or read a chapter in a book once per day then over time we look back and see how much we actually accomplished from daily consistency.
By setting goals at some arbitrary time in the future we’re creating a date “out there” that leads to lots of procrastination. There’s a book called The 12 Week Year that essentially states if we put goals out too far in the future — such as aforementioned yearly resolutions, we tend to procrastinate and start to get to work at the last moment, instead of right now! getting it done now and moving on to the next plan, action, and idea. That is, if we’re serious about fulfilling goals. We underestimate how much we can get done! (The 12 Week Year is a business-oriented, goal-setting book but has great principles for whatever we want to get done sooner.)
I’m at fault with this at running race goals. I tend to overestimate how fit I’ll be (never mind life and injuries may get in the way) six months out. But what I can do is do everything I can every. single. day. Can I run a 2:40 in 2017? Maybe, but I should focus on each and every day instead of some lofty goal ten to eleven months out. It’s about the process of achievement, not the results.
Setting resolutions should be about setting up processes and changes of mindset and habit. E.I., do what we can each day. Figure out the process and execute. The results may not come immediately, but with continued daily effort – which is great practice as well! – we start to see results. Do we want more social media followers and influence? Sure, but how do we reach 100 new followers each month? Why not focus on posting daily? Eventually we’ll get more followers from being active and it’s action-oriented.
Resolutions are sexy because they’re goal oriented (and because the media talks about it). But, resolutions usually aren’t action-oriented. They’re the end result. Replace “resolutions” with daily habits, ritual, practices, or whatever else keeps you consistent. Replace setting race goals; set up plans to run whenever we can and do the best job that we can. Instead of saying we want 1,000 Twitter followers, say we’re going to post 10 daily.
We can only accomplish what we do. Setting resolutions means nothing if there is no follow through. We need to decide to commit time each day to each our goals. What is the point of creating a goal or resolution if we’re not actually planning on executing? And the great thing about taking action? It leads to more action! Once we see what doing a little bit each day and that we’re creating momentum, we tend to take more action to see what else we can do. The virtuous cycle!
