WHY New Year's Resolutions are pointless?

in #steemstem6 years ago

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During the New Year's Eve party, when friends are outdoing each other in more and more prominent New Year's resolutions, I look around for another bottle of champagne, which I think is more productive and causes a smaller hangover [unfortunately only moral]

In the past, probably most of us have decided to make some New Year's decisions and never fullfilled even a small part of it. This behavior, after January 1st, has well-known reasons that are based on:

  • bad planning
  • planning in bad conditions
  • bad goals apportionment (further explained)

Why do we need planning in our life?

Good planning is the way of achieving our set goals.

If the goal is set incorrectly, when encountering problems, you will not be able to find a way to overcome them. That is why goals set in life should be:

  • very specific
  • realistic
  • engaging
  • with a good plan.

The first three points will be analyzed in the next paragraph related to our New Year's resolutions case. When it comes to a good plan, it is based on the fact that when formulating a goal, we must also choose ways to reach the goal.

In addition, we should analyze our progress in a regular manner. A popular example of the resolution - going to the gym to improve health and reduce weight. Do not check the fulfillment of the goal on the next New Year's Eve, but preferably once a week:

  • examining body weight
  • holding on to the diet
  • once a month/several months, doing blood tests.

These checks allow us to stick to the road and plan any detours in case of the problems.

Among the professional poker players sidebets or propbets are very popular. They rely on bets often not related to the card game itself. They can apply to everything, but currently the trend is betting on the weight loss or weight gain and they are both-sided (two people - each with a goal toachieve). Bets are framed with horrendous fines, e.g. $ 100,000 for not completing the task.

Bad planning - New Year's example

It is slowly becoming clear now why the New Year's resolutions make no sense. This is mainly due to planning under the influence of emotions.

Each of us probably had a moment of great motivation when invented a new project/business and felt like a God. Unfortunately, making decisions about setting a goal in such conditions is a very bad idea.

Motivational guru's - internet coaches will tell you that it is different, but it is not true.

This is due to our emotional distributions during the life. Let's assume that such a distribution is:

  • 80% of the time we feel normal
  • 10% of the time we are in euphoria and have great ideas
  • 10% of the time we feel bad.

You can not fulfill the challenge in a time that only lasts 10% of your life! You will not be able to build the same euphoria and motivation as when creating the New Year's resolution.

What is more, under the influence of emotions, we often choose either too difficult or too easy goals. We are not able to perform with a difficult goal, and there is no point in fulfilling easy task. Very often the goals are unspecified exactly, worse - planned in groups with dumped responsibility on our friends on the party.

Gambler Dan Bilzerian made a bet with the millionaire Bill Perkins (they both play amateur high-stakes poker) that he will travel 300 miles from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a bike in 48 hours. The route mostly ran through the desert. The bet amount was 1.2 million dollars. Most of the people did not believe in the possibility of success. However, Bilzerian decided to take the bet seriously - he hired Lance Armstrong to help with bicycle trainings, he got a lot of tips on how to survive in the desert full of the sun. During the ride, he used the help of a car which, driving in front of him, created a vacuum tunnel. Of course he won the bet because he prepared well.

Goals

Sport psychology speaks of dividing the goals into two types - result oriented (outcome) and performance.

outcome goal - is related to the result, i.e. winning the tournament. Incorrectly, most of us in life only sets this type of goals. This causes stress, losses during the game/achieving the goal.

performance/mastering goal - is the standard of mastering the performance, meaning - a smaller goal, aimed at improving one small element of the plan. While executing your plan, you should focus on small goals, which in effect build the whole - the result oriented goal.

In sports, putting side goals on the team diverts their attention to the result, reducing stress and thus less mistakes in the game.

I play amateur ice hockey. What can I do to help the team achieve the result goal? I set a small performance goal for myself. This goal was to build strong legs and hands. The basic exercises were push-ups and squats.After a month, I could see the effects in the form of stronger shots, better stability on the ice and body checks, which is a small piecie building the advantage of the whole team.

I mainly publish in polish language, sorry for mistakes in english :)
Thank you for reading! Resteems, follows highly appreciated!

Images: Pixabay, free for comercial use

Inspired by:

  • "Mental Edge" by Leszek Badurowicz (PL)

Previously:

Sort:  

Target Set, Planned, Step by step, Achieving objectives. Effort and achieve goals in a stable manner.

Anything positive or hopeful the mind can vision is fantastic! It increases your chance of success in making it become real immensely! Nothing has ever existed that is not first pure imagination ;)

Interesting post thanks!