One Game Changing Strategy to Follow in 2022 to Smash Those New Year’s Resolutions

Reading time ~3-4 minutes

For many people, the month of December usually starts with a disbelief.

A disbelief that: “Is it December already!?” With their next thought being: “Gosh! What did I even achieve in these past 11-months gone by?” And the subsequent thought mostly being, “My life has no direction. I just work, eat, sleep and repeat.”  (sigh!)

Just 11 months ago, these people had started off with a whole bunch of amazing New Year Resolutions (mostly to make ‘Lifestyle changes’ or to inculcate ‘positive habits’). Unfortunately, it became hard to follow through, and by the time February arrived, these resolutions were already forgotten.

It was just too much work.

Although there is a ton of literature (which everyone has access to) on how to break this cycle, yet people seldom seem to make any tangible progress, and with each passing year, the list of ‘resolutions’ or ‘things-to-do’ and ‘habits to form’ only seems to pile up!

If you are sailing in that boat, this short article is for you.

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PART 1 – WHY YOU FAIL?

Before we look at what can be done, it is important to understand why you fail each year, despite the best of intentions. Unless you have this understanding, it will not be possible for you to put appropriate countermeasures to turn the tide in your favour.

Reason #1 for failure – Less TIME at Your Disposal.

In order to work on the resolutions/ habits, it is obvious that you need to devote ‘time’ for such activities. However, life is busy! The 24 hours in a day are not enough and are already crammed with a lot of things. Most hours of the day are already accounted for. It could be your work, or you may have to take care of others (kids/ elderly at home?) or you have to go walk the dog. Likewise, there are chores you cannot walk away from. Any balance time goes away on social media, or consuming news!

This leaves you with a very limited time each day to pursue anything meaningful. And then you postpone the things you ought to do today for tomorrow (in other words, you procrastinate). What you do not realize, however, is that you will not have more ‘spare time’ tomorrow to achieve your goals. Tomorrow will be just like today. Exactly how today is for yesterday. Busy.

In a previous article, I elaborated how you can still get a maximum of two hours in a day to work on your goals/ passion. And if you do not guard that time zealously, it will be lost forever.

Reason #2 for failure – Too Many Resolutions.

When I first made a New Year’s Resolution a few years ago, my list was packed.

I wanted (a) to exercise; (b) to eat healthy food, (c) to wake up at 5 AM each day, (d) to upskill myself at work, (e) to build better relationships, (f) to read more books, (g) to start a meditation routine, (h) to start blogging, (i) to travel to new places, (j) … and the list just went on! Each item on the list was a priority, and I wanted to achieve everything.

Within a few days, however, I got overwhelmed with all the things that I planned to achieve, and after a few weeks of not achieving anything, I got disheartened and eventually gave up on everything! I tried to bite too much, which made me bite nothing at all.

Looking back, I was just too naïve (read ‘dumb!’).

So, the BIG Question now is, “What do you do when you have (a) Less Time at your disposal, and (b) Too many things to pursue in that Limited Time?”

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PART 2 – Game Changing Strategy

As a countermeasure to the two big limitations identified above, the one Game Changing Strategy that you must adopt is to Target only One Habit which you feel will create maximum impact in your life.

Work on that one habit until it is a part of your identity. Then you can jump on to newer things. But until you can associate yourself with that one thing, don’t do anything else.

Follow Swami Vivekananda’s advice and make that one Habit or Lifestyle Change your only priority till the time it becomes who you are. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.

So, for instance, if you wish to wake up at 5 AM each morning, focus only on waking up at 5 AM every day. Within a few days, you will realize that you cannot simply wake up early unless you have a strong purpose to give you that motivation to get out of the warm and cozy bed.

Similarly, you will realize that waking up early is easier in the long run only when you go to bed early. It means that in addition to having a purpose to wake up earlier, you also now need to work at improving your evening routine. No more binge-watching Netflix when you go to sleep.

Over time, waking up at 5 AM will not only help you to be an early riser, but with that one Habit, you will also no longer be a person who binge watches TV shows late at night. In addition to that, since you are waking up early, it will allow you the opportunity to utilize that time to meditate, or to exercise, or to read in the stillness of early mornings.

Do you realize?

Just One Habit “To Wake-up Early”, now means you subconsciously work on many others, as well. Each supplementing the other, and improving your life, bit by bit, creating a ripple effect throughout all aspects of your life.

In the book The ONE Thing, authors Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan talk about this idea. They write about creating a domino effect by doing small tasks effectively and consistently, which eventually help to move much bigger dominos fall.

Similarly, author Charles Duhigg, in his bestseller book The Power of Habit, refers to this phenomenon as benefits derived from implementing a ‘Keystone Habit’. According to Duhigg, “Developing a Keystone Habit helps to trigger a cascade of positive change”.

Following a similar strategy of focusing energy only on One (Maximum Impact Generating) Habit at a time, can potentially help:

• An overweight person to get her weight under control. She can begin with keeping a food journal. After some time, writing down about all the donuts gobbled up won’t be too enticing, and she will be more mindful of what goes in her body. Gradually, that One Habit will lead her to eat better food, start an exercise routine, and overall get her weight under control.

• A workaholic to achieve a balanced life. Focusing on One Habit to get home early every single day and to have dinner with his family will force a busy executive to look at strategies to improve his efficiency at work, including optimizing his deep work, improving his delegation skills, making more efficient meetings, etc. Effectively, it will help him to achieve a balanced and a more fulfilling life.

While the results will come, you need to have the patience while you build up the consistency. As we all know, any change is hard in the beginning.  That is why you must focus only on the One Thing so that your energy is not diverted over too many things at the same time.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Finally, another 52 weeks may soon come and go, and it will be December of the year 2022. However, if you follow the above strategy in 2022 and focus your energy to identify and to work on your Maximum Impact Generating Habit, I am sure that you will be ready to tackle the next Big Resolution of yours in the year 2023. All the best.

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^{Cover Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya from Pexels}