Promises are meant to be broken and new year's resolutions are "designed to fail". I bet 99% of the people who got into any type of new year's resolution for 2023 have completely forgotten by now what they've chosen as resolutions for this year. Chances are that quite a few forgot about those after just a few champagne glasses on the very 1st of January...
I have a gym mate that works out with me once in a while, he's not very consistent with the gym and not much of a hard worker either, but he said on the third of January, when we met after a ten-day break that one of his new year's resolutions was to hit the gym five days a week and not miss a damn day...
He's already talking now about mixing training sessions so that he would only hit the gym three times a week. Man, we're not even two weeks into 2023 and this guy is already cheating on his resolutions. I bet he's not alone in this thing.
Why?
Well, the way I see it, most of the people that engage in such promises to themselves are often times setting themselves extremely high targets to achieve and thus often times fail. They're thinking is like: if I promise to myself on the first day of the year to lift weights five times a week and quit smoking it's like some sort of deity will make that happen for me...
It's not going to happen and instead of fooling yourself with such miserable promises one should instead try and build good habits. And to that consciously...
Talking to oneself and sharing that monologue with others as a resolution is one thing and actually doing shit that matters is another. You don't even need to "start creating these habits" on January the 1st of any year, you can do it at any date and most importantly you should be very conscious about your decision and be real with yourself.
If I would have promised myself on January 1st that by the end of the year, I will be chest bench pressing with 100kg I would be lying to myself. That's impossible. Instead, I took the decision to work harder than I did in 2022, more lucid, and "cleaner", and see what it gets...
The same goes for quitting addictions. In order to kill any addiction one would have, one needs to replace it with a "good habit". If you decide to quit smoking, at least for a while you should "do something instead". You're gonna be going through withdrawal stages and if you don't have something else to serve to your "monkey mind", other than cigarettes there's a high chance you'll end up smoking again.
Most of the people that I admire are very disciplined and have no time to waste. Wasting time is wasting life and somehow unconsciously, if not consciously, these guys know that. Hence, instead of falling for a new year's resolution that you'll likely fail at, choose a good habit that aims at killing the bird you were having on your scope "dreaming to take down" with a damn new year's resolution.
That's about it for today. I wish you all a great day and see you next time.
Thanks for your attention,
Adrian
I've felt the same way as you about New Year resolutions for many years. Yet, always a little guilty of not making a concerted effort to fix bad habits at any time of the year. But I think you have opened that door for me with :
That reminds me of the good habit that helped me quit smoking 30+ years ago - raising my daughter!
Now I just need to think of something good to replace today's bad habits.
Hive can become a good habit for getting rid of some addictions.
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I'm the type that made a conscious decision if I want to make a change, work hard at it and make it happens. Like when I decided to add at least 250 hive power to my account by posting and engaging with others two months ago even with me being a new mom and it did happens.
But somehow I have being caught up for some days now about this new year resolution of a thing, I kind of start feeling left out.
This your post just reminds me that all that I need to have a great life is to know what I want to achieve, then decide to work hard toward it and get it.
Thank you !luv
Funny, I wrote a post in Aseanhive about New Years resolutions that I never have completed or come to full fruition all that I wanted to change so for this year I wish to resolve it by not procrastinating all the things that I wanted to change.
For now I think it's working because I wrote the word Procrastination in a bond paper and placed it on the wall of our kitchen where I can see it every day to remind me not to delay the things that I wanted to do.
Saying goodbye to bad habits, replacing them with new one's, I totally agree with you.
Here is a book hint for 2023 https://academic.oup.com/book/25369/chapter-abstract/192450613?redirectedFrom=fulltext