Your New Year’s Resolutions Are Doomed Before You Even Begin – Unless…

toss-paper-giveup-new-years-resolution

We’re almost done with first week in January: the week where more  New Year’s resolutions are broken than any other.

25% of New Year’s resolutions are broken in the first week alone. 

Within 6 months, over half of New Year Resolvers will have given up.

Why?

Why is it that so many resolutions are doomed from the start?

Here’s one major reason I’ve found with clients:

You need to learn how to balance these new resolutions with your prior commitments.

You’re Already Busy

Resolutions usually involve new commitments.

The problem is:  you’re already busy.

Imagine this:  if on December 31st, you were already living a life where every moment of the day was filled with something –  how can you do everything you’ve always done, and squeeze in time for new things on January 1?   

So the change isn’t just starting new resolutions …

You also need to take this opportunity to sharpen your  focus, and give up on a few things.

The answer is: 

Commit to doing less of some things: so you can do the important things better.

The simplest way I’ve found of letting go is to actively decide what I will work on right now – and what I’m going to let fall to “maybe” in my life.

How? You make two lists:

  • Your “Todo” List – The things you are working on today, this week, this month…anything you are actually working on
  • Your “Someday” List – Low priority projects that you know you can’t commit time to – and you accept that they won’t get worked on until “Someday” in the future (which could be never)

The Someday List

Very briefly, the Someday list is my list of items that I intend to get to “Someday.”

So working out may be something that is on my Todo list right now, because I know I am going to do that today and throughout this week.

On the other hand, some books I am planning to write are sitting on the “Someday” lis.

They are projects I would like to work on, but they are not important enough to me to make it on my Todo list right now….

And maybe they never will.

Every week or two, I review the items on that list.

If I decide I am ready to begin a project that week… I move it from Someday into my normal Todo List.

I can hear the question  now…

If it’s on your Someday list and it never gets done, what’s the point?

The Point Is…Prioritizing

If you don’t explicitly decide what is on your Someday list, you implicitly put everything you aren’t actively working on on it.

  • Do you have a dream of running a marathon?
  • Starting your own business?
  • Writing a book?

If you don’t actively take action on it then you are already letting it be pushed off into the future – by the day-to-day things that come up and happen.  

What To Do Today – Vs “Someday”

And truthfully – some of those “emergencies” don’t need to be dealt with today – or sometimes ever.

Save those low-value, time-consuming tasks for “Someday” – and make today a day that matters to you.

Don’t be a statistic – don’t be one of the 25% who gives up this first week! There’s still time to turn it around.

And don’t worry if you don’t feel this moment, or this year, or this week, or this situation isn’t “exactly right.”

You don’t need “exactly right” on the outside to make a change – you just need to take action, right now.

“If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev