Happy New Year!
I seem to be writing that at the start of all my posts so far this year, but hey, 'tis the season. We still have a few more days out of that greeting, I think.
On my mind today is New Year's resolutions. So let's start our conversation for today there.
It's kind of the go to small talk topic for this season, so I'm sure you've found yourself asked or asking about them so far this year. Some of you probably even made some. Let me guess: to start exercising more, to start eating better, to see friends more, and to make more money. Something like that, right?
We all have read articles about how most New Year's resolutions fail and are abandoned within the first month if not sooner. I think this is mostly because most New Year's resolutions tend to be little more than ill-defined wishes. "I will be successful this year!" Well... ok, but successful at what? Business, probably. How do we define success? A salary of above $100k? The ability to comfortably afford a sports car or a bigger house? Being recognized by the local newspaper as a successful person?
Along with being ill-defined, many resolutions also ask for too much. "I will get one million dollars this year!". That's more of a dream than a resolution. One that becomes easily discouraging when it doesn't come true within the first few weeks after making it. And once disillusionment hits it becomes much easier to abandon the resolution than continue to follow it (or hope for it, whatever the case may be).
Most people's plan for making that money - Image by LesColporteurs from Pixabay
Even fairly straight-forward resolutions like "I will start going to the gym every weekend" quickly fall apart because there is no plan of action in that resolution. Then we get the flip side of that coin, the people who not only plan exactly how to go to the gym, but they plan their exact workout to the minute. This one falls apart due to simple burnout, after which it takes a large and substantial amount of motivation to get back on that horse.
Rather than these big monumental resolutions, I propose small changes are a much better path to success.
Image by İSMAİL DEMİRBAŞ from Pixabay
If you've ever seen What About Bob? you remember the scene at the beginning where Richard Dreyfuss tells Bill Murray that the way to change his behavior is a series of baby steps towards the goal. In the movie it's played for laughs, but I think it's a great idea. Baby steps are much much easier to accomplish than normal steps. Completing one gives a sense of accomplishment and a burst of motivation that makes moving on to the next easier. Stringing together a series of baby steps then can add up to a large leap or more.
Let's put that in practical terms. Instead of saying you will go to the gym every week, say you will put on your sneakers and take a five minute walk around the block. You might move on from that baby step and for the next step expand it to a 20 minute walk around a wider area in your neighborhood. For a next step, increase your pace; 20 minutes at a relaxed pace should get you close to a mile (1.6 km), so try to push that pace so you hit 1.1 miles instead. You get the idea. Baby steps. Maybe the eventual overall goal can remain going to the gym every week and working out for an hour, but work up to that with a series of baby steps. Using these baby steps you might not work up to going to the gym every week until half way through or even the end of the year. That's ok. Better to eventually arrive at the overall goal than to never make it there at all.
The great thing about baby steps is that even a failure is only a minor setback. If I fail to go to the gym every week I lose motivation and it becomes even harder to try again next week, but if I fail to move from 1 mile in 20 minutes to 1.1 mile in 20 minutes, that's not as big of a blow.
How might this work on Hive terms? Many of you have posted that you want to write a post daily in 2023. Great! But that may be quite a leap. Let's break it down into baby steps. Once a week write a 500 word post. From there, add a second post. Maybe for a next step you increase the length of your posts to 750 words. And so on. You can decide your own steps, but the point is make them small.
Now while you are doing your baby steps, it is important to stay positive! Negative thought can kill motivation. Call it realism if you'd like, but the point is anything that doesn't motivate is not helpful and anything other than positive thought usually doesn't motivate.
Motivation is like a feather gently falling to the ground. It may fall slowly, but it is falling. Unless we constantly get under it and blow it upwards, it will eventually hit the ground. And once it's on the ground, it takes more effort to get it back into the air than it would have taken to simply keep it in the air. So too with motivation.
The high people get from making a New Year's resolution soon wears off and motivation drops. Unless you are constantly re-motivating yourself, it's very easy to soon lose all heart and give up.
I think Ziglar said it best when he said "Motivation is the fuel, necessary to keep the human engine running."
Another apt quote from him about the necessity of constant motivation is "Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis."
There are many things you can do to motivate yourself. When I was first starting to jog daily, I had two songs on my playlist: The Rocky Theme and Eye of the Tiger. Those would keep me motivated even when my body was screaming out for me to stop.
There are many other ways to motivate, but we are talking baby steps here, so this is where positive thinking enters the picture. I'm not talking about the more mystical promises that The Power of Positive Thinking gave us in self-help circles in the 1980s, nor the intentions and manifesting that were later added onto the idea from The Secret. I'm speaking very practically of simply keeping a positive outlook.
When it rains moaning and groaning and being negative about it isn't really going to do anything except make you and the people around you feel worse, even if that worse is only a little. You can complain all you want, but it's not going to stop the rain. But accepting the rain with a smile and learning to enjoy it, that adds a little more positivity into your life.
More importantly, a positive outlook is more likely to keep your spirit and motivation high than a negative outlook.
A good practice to start with is always trying to bring just a little positivity into your day. It could be smiling at yourself in the mirror, it could be seeking out and reading more positive news, it could be putting down the work and actually letting yourself completely play with your pets or kids for an hour.
Smile at yourself - Image by Praveen Raj from Pixabay
Here's one thing I do that you might try. I keep a bullet journal to track my daily obligations. Many of you probably know about this system, but for those who don't, it's basically just a custom planner that we write in a notebook instead of in a planner we buy for the year. Every morning I wake up before the kids and spend some time writing down my obligations and my schedule for the day. At the top of each day's section, I write a positive quote. I have my own favorites, but you should find your own. If you can't think of any, just Google "Positive Quotes" and you'll see hundreds of lists.
Just the act of handwriting this out and getting it into my head helps increase my motivation and outlook. Then also every time I consult my Bullet Journal throughout the day, I see the quote and am reminded of it.
Anyway, we'll leave it there. The key takeaways I want you to leave this article with are. 1. Instead of a big resolution, make baby steps towards a goal. 2. Feed your motivation daily. 3. Try to remain positive.
Good luck with your goals in 2023!
| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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