We all know, I hope, that one doesn’t have to wait for a new year in order to make a resolution. Companies and other organisations make resolutions all year round in boardrooms across the world with varying degrees of success. Opinion by Thembe Khumalo
But somehow a new year seems to lend itself to the pronouncement of big goals and drastic changes. I suppose it’s the newness of it that gives us the illusion that anything is possible. A resolution by its very name denotes a certain amount of determination.
And this suggests some pre-thinking and planning for why the resolution is being made and how it might be achieved.
This is probably the first post at which we fail. Often our resolutions are not only reckless, but also radical bearing little relation to our day-to-day reality and creating a potent concoction of impetuousness with a guarantee of failure.
Listening to the radio the other day (isn’t it great that we can now listen to radio every day and actually enjoy it?), I heard the presenter say that he didn’t believe in resolutions because they fail. He said his pastor had taught him to make affirmations instead. Affirmations are widely endorsed by self-help teachers, but I wonder whether the success rate of impetuous affirmations is any better than that of radical and reckless resolutions?
Research seems to suggest not. According to author Oliver Burkeman, writing in Newsweek magazine, “. . . psychological research suggests that repeating ‘affirmations’ makes people with low self-esteem feel worse, that visualising your ambitions can make you less motivated to achieve them, that goal setting can backfire; and that emotions cant be controlled by sheer force of will . . .”
So how do we realise successful and meaningful change in our lives? How would you turn a casual resolution into a realistic and achievable goal? Well, to begin with you would need to establish if it is indeed realistic and achievable. What are the critical success factors and what are some of the measures we can put in place to support our efforts and track our progress? Do we have a track record of success in this area (or in any other area for that matter)which we can draw strength from?
Before the Biblical David slayed the giant Goliath, he had killed a lion and a bear, and at the point of facing Goliath he used the memory of his previous victories to bolster his courage.
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Once of the biggest stumbling blocks that new year resolutions face is the fact that we make a whole bunch of them all at once.
We resolve to make a complete overhaul of our lives in so many areas that in the end we fail at all of them! The way to achieve personal growth is similar to the way we eat elephants: Taking one manageable chewable bite at a time, and then only taking another once we have swallowed the first.
It’s not as glamorous or exciting as the total life makeover that we are accustomed to pledging when a new year comes around. But it sure is more likely to succeed. Then we should probably write it down somewhere fairly stable. By this, I mean that the document should still be there at the end of the year so that you can reference back to it and measure your success.
If your goals are to be reviewed annually or monthly and you still use a paper diary, the back of the diary is usually a good place to list them. The diary goes everywhere with you, so you can look at them often, and you are unlikely to lose or throw it away until the year has expired. Most people love a story of redemption, whether it is a soul saved from eternal damnation, a lover rescued from long-term loneliness or a nation rescued from the precipice of war.
We all want to be that hero. Some of us want the hero status more than others, and so will invest more in the causes we believe in.
Joanna Schroeder writes about how she turned her life around in The Good Men Project: “I did all of this by being very strict with myself, by making painful sacrifices, going to therapy consistently, relying on relationships in my life for support . . . It wasn’t sexy. And none of these things were New Year’s resolutions. They were challenges that came up along the way that I had to address. And I failed a lot — am still failing sometimes — but I just keep trying to do better over and over again.”
So the lesson for you and me is to set aside the culture of mega new year resolutions, and simply resolve. Then act.
- Thembe Khumalo writes in her personal capacity. Readers’ comments can be sent to [email protected]. Follow Thembe on Twitter www.twitter/localdrummer or visit her facebook page www.facebook.com/localdrummerzw
