New Year's Resolutions: Why you shouldn't bother

Ah New Year’s Resolutions… gotta love them! Every year we swear we are going to lose weight, quit smoking, cut down drinking, get organised, achieve our business goals… we talk about it with conviction, even stubbornness… this is it, next year will be our year, starting on the first of January.

Really? You are actually going to start on the first of January?!

I’ll believe it when I see it! According to research only 12% of people who set new year’s resolutions actually go on to achieve their objectives.

A friend of mine who maintains that new year’s resolutions are just a shopping list for the first week of January. I agree.

I am not a fan of the word resolution, it reminds me too much of the word dissolution… but I am a fan of relentless resolve, which is really what it takes to make things happen. So that you go after what you want like a hawk goes after its prey, with ruthless resolve.

It’s my experience that as humans unless we are passionately working towards an objective, we are bound to end up working against our own selves, sometimes very passionately too.

If this wasn’t true, I’d be out of a job.

See, when you are not making things happen, things happen to you. But the things that happen to you are not necessarily the things you want. I hear it all the time “Anna, why do these things keep happening to me?”

Because you’ve been letting them happen to you.

I am not happy going with the flow and not knowing what’s going to occur in my life. And while some things are out of my control, such as tsunamis, typhoons, tornados, hurricanes, snow storms… and other highly annoying events, other things are within my control.

If a tornado blew my home away, I’d be pissed off, but if I ended up overweight and miserable, that would have been my own fault, and I’d be dammed! So, while some people choose to hover over the earth with no direction or will to change their life for the better, I am working hard on building my own destiny.

While some people put their future in the hands of a fortune teller, I know I am not going to see mine at the bottom of a tea cup, inside a crystal ball, or written on an ancient pebble.

While working with clients, many tell me they don’t really know what they want.

If you don’t know what you want, then think about what it is that you are sick of. That’ll help you whittle things down quickly.

When you decide what it is that you want to start to do more off, or less off, then be clever, and avoid postponing it until the first of January. Why wait? Start right now. Not next week, not tomorrow, right now.

What’s stopping you?

So you may not have all the resources you need. Maybe you need a plan, or money, or books… you may need to talk to someone, make a phone call, write an email, take a course, or get some coaching… but what you do have right now is the ability to put yourself in the most resourceful state of mind, now so you start to look at life through the eyes of a hawk, talk to yourself like a boxing coach talks to their champion, and notice your heart beat faster as you feel what it feels like to take fierce action and make things happen.

Now, with a smirk on your face, rub your hands together vigorously, as you take a deep breath and go get some stuff done!