The Lameness Of New Year Resolutions

On New Year’s Eve, many of us make (or consider making) a resolution to achieve a personal goal. This is your opportunity for a new start, you are once again ready to accept a new challenge and achieve something worthwhile. And resolutions fall into one of two things-you either want to start doing something new (exercise, diet, eat better, save money, travel more) or you want to stop doing something (smoking, drinking, watching too much TV, excessive shopping, blowing up debt). The majority of people make their resolutions at the last hour to midnight, often in response to “what's-your-resolution”? By the way, the other thing about resolutions is they do not need to be declared at the stroke of midnight, or on New Year's day. (I know that was bad but I had to put that in). But its customary to kick start the New Year with a lot of enthusiasm and energy to get your goals. Yet habits die hard and when it comes to human behavior, past performance is often the presage to future behavior. So after a while, the excitement goes away and not long after, you suddenly realize you have gone for the last couple of weeks without sticking to your resolution. Perhaps you stopped going to the gym to work out for a few days or you started smoking again or stopped your diet plan because of some stressful situation at work. Or if big, hairy goals are starting to freak you out, you may want to sit back and reassess some of your goals again…

Now I’m a madly optimistic person and I consider lack of motivation or commitment as lame excuses. I imagine goals or resolutions to be the ‘rocks in a pickle jar of gravel and sand’ experiment. If you fill in sand and gravel first, you can't fit all the rocks in the jar. There’s simply isn’t enough space. To fit all the big rocks into the jar, you have to put them in first. Then you can fill in between the rocks. Apply the famous 80/20 rule to your life. Simply put, the relationship between input and output is skewed. When applied to your work it means roughly 20 percent of your efforts translates to 80 percent of results. So once you let go of resolutions based on self chastisement or things you didn't want to do, work becomes play. And in my experience keeping the bar as low as possible is best when making any New Year resolution because unless you’re chagrined with your life, you’re not likely to take drastic steps to improve whatever situation you’re in. Again, the real gold is your experience, not in achieving goals. So quit making resolutions and rather be practical about choices by taking a harder look at your life.

Anthony Robbins says, "There are two things that motivate people toward success: inspiration and desperation." Robbins - a famous motivator and life coach - has struck on an interesting truth in this pithy statement: that there are two different kinds of motivation. There is "away from" motivation, and there is "toward" motivation. People who are "away from" motivated tend to be excellent problem solvers. They usually see the problems in things. They're motivated by the avoidance of unpleasant sensations like pain, stress, and anxiety. For example, to motivate themselves to get a rust patch on their car fixed, they wouldn't think about how great their car would look with a fresh coat of paint. They'd be motivated by how bad it would be if they let the rust spread. They're motivated by a desire to avoid certain things. People who are "toward" motivated are motivated by positive things, like pleasure, goals, and rewards. They tend to respond well to perks and incentives - for example, an office worker who's motivated by 'toward' results would do well in their job if their boss offered bonuses and rewards schemes. Knowing which kind of end result drives you is a BIG part of motivating yourself to achieving what you want and you're just as well off with either type of motivation. NLP practitioner Dr Zweig uses the example of stock forecaster to illustrate the success of an "away from" motivated person. Zweig's desire to not lose money and not "get hurt" by the stock exchange is what has prompted his legendary dynamic caution when managing funds - and is what has prompted his even more legendary multi-billion dollar fortune. Dr Zweig says that other "away from" motivated people need to be aware of 3 important things: That the further away you get from the "threat" that's motivating you, the more your motivation may diminish.

Okay, it's time to figure out how to use this knowledge to motivate yourself, in a way that you JUST CAN'T SAY NO TO, into getting what you really want. I want to get back to how you can overcome your natural discouragement ... your fear of bad things happening as a result of trying to achieve something. The trick to overcoming these discouragers? It's all in the DETAILS. Picture a drop-dead gorgeous woman. Visualize her. Notice how detailed your mental image of her is. This makes perfect sense when you think about it - your brain knows that you like the idea of this woman, so it tries to please you by supplying you with as much detail as possible. Next, I want you to visualize a woman who you find unattractive. Notice how much less detailed this mental image is. This is because the brain visualizes things that are unattractive to it as being very SMALL, DIM, DISTANT, and DULL. In contrast, the woman you found attractive was seen by your brain as being BIG, BRIGHT, DETAILED, and CLOSE UP to you. In other words, you can trick your brain into being attracted to an idea, simply by changing the way your brain looks at it! Your brain will naturally be drawn towards that which is close, detailed, and high-resolution and your motivation to achieve this result gets stronger.

Think while laying a rock wall, many small stones are needed to support the fewer big stones, to hold them in place. If you leave out the small stones, the big ones would have no support and will fall. Finishing touches are in the small details. And without details, perfection is not possible. You are expected to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’. Paradoxically, paying too much attention to the small things lead to friction in relationships. So why not leave out the small things? Better, how to resolve this paradox? Easy…when it comes to yourself and your work, give attention to the smallest of details. When it comes to relationship, don't sweat the stuff. But if you feel the other is not living up to the fullest, say it. Do it tenderly and with love, but be sure to do it. And don't ever settle for less than the best. The same people will be left speechless at your promotion and to the secret of your enviable relationship !