I’ll tell you why New Year resolutions annoy me. Apart from setting yourself up for inevitable failure, they cause you to focus on both an unsatisfactory past and an uncertain future. The notion is that at the end of the year, you weigh up all the things you didn’t like about yourself and commit to changing them. The problem with this is that you are weighing up the success or failure of the previous twelve months based on the things that you stuffed up. Once you have done this, you then ignore the present and go right on to setting difficult goals for yourself that you couldn’t keep before. You then project them into a future that you hope will bring fulfilment. Setting goals for yourself is fine in essence, but random goals without personal values to guide them, made on one day of the year, are simply dangerous.
The past and the future
‘We can’t change the past’ is one of those altruistic and annoying statements that some people direct at you after the wheels have fallen off your life. They make the statement in such a way that indicates that they have no issue with regret like you seem to. Apart from the tone, the problem with this statement is that it is annoyingly partly true. We can’t change the past and just about everybody knows this. It’s like saying ‘Watch your head’ the moment after you bumped it. Information that would have helped a minute ago, but is a little annoying now.
Added to this list of obvious but annoying statements is ‘You can’t live in the future’. Often this one is made by people who spend all their time talking about superannuation, focussing on their investments or planning their lives out to the finest detail. For the record, it is impossible to live in the future and we all know it. It is however, very easy to think about the future too much and worry about and over plan it almost all the time. If focussing on the past is about regret, focussing on the future is about anxiety and fear.
Noone is saying ‘don’t be prepared’
To achieve valuable goals in life requires planning, effort, discipline and research. Noone denies this. It is often one of the hallmarks of successful achievement that a great deal of planning has gone into it. The problem comes when we don’t let this planning and achievement mode rest. It can very quickly turns into worry and anxiety.
A great issue of mine has always been that I thought I could worry a problem away. I would convince myself that if I focus on something constantly, I can overcome it, even if I had already done all I could. What I should have instead been saying to myself is ‘I’ve done everything I can to prepare, so relax. Whatever happens is out of my control now’. It sounds obvious, but I must have missed that lesson somewhere along the line.
The key is values
In my mind there should only be one New Year’s resolution. That should be ‘I will live according to my values’. If this is your only resolution, then success or failure doesn’t come into it. For example, you may set a resolution to live a healthy life. If you then splurge at Christmas or over indulge on your birthday, you have failed your resolution to be healthy. If, however, your value is a healthy life, then a fun day here or there is not a failure. In fact you could argue that it adds to a more balanced life.
Major things go wrong in life for everybody. Sure some people have more resources to deal with problems than others, but that doesn’t stop them from occuring in the first place. If we wish to live fully, bad stuff will happen. Sometimes failure even occurs through no fault of our own. If your only goal is success, then failure presents a significant problem for you. If however, your values are learning, growth resilience and embracing change, then whilst disappointing, you can still say that you lived according to your values and will continue in them. This enables you to hold your head proudly, rain or shine.
The present moment
With your values clear and intact, instead of worrying about the future, you are able to look at each present moment as an opportunity to live according to what is important to you. Being present in each moment is a shelter from the twin fronts of worry and anxiety that so easily overcome us.
Don’t weigh up the value of your life by some limited resolution, made on New Year’s Day. Don’t set yourself as a target for disappointment by living purely in the past and the future. Instead, spend time focussing on what your values really are and commit to living by them here and now. Living according to your values gives you something to smile about at the end of every day, win or lose.
Related links
Freedom – A highly valued thing » The Good The Bad and The Unrelated
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