A-Musings

Making Resolutions Work Ah, yes. It’s that time of year again, following a month of end-of-year excess, of seasonal reveling, of Winter Solstice/Christmas/Chaunukah/Kwansaa/New Year/Three Kings/insert-your-holiday-of-choice-here festivities, many of us take a moment to take stock, assess, evaluate, and consider the coming year. What’s next. What’s not good enough. What could be better. What needs improving. What we really want to have happen in our lives . The dawning of a new year really does feel like a clean slate, the perfect time to start fresh and usher in those changes we’ve been putting off for months. Losing weight. Exercising more. Eating healthier. Cleaning the closets. Signing up for those courses. Quitting smoking. Pursuing the dream job. Getting out of debt. Insert-your–latest-resolution-here. Months of winter, cold and dark and dull and daunting now that the holidays have passed, provide a relatively distraction-free backdrop during whi...

What Dissolves Our Resolve As I was saying: We attribute our inability to keep our resolutions to a lack of willpower, the lack of sunlight, the job, the cold, our spouse, our childhood, the dog – you name it. However, our best-laid plans go astray when a psychological phenomenon known as “resistance” kicks in. That uncomfortable feeling of “eeeeeeeiiiiiiiihhhhhhaaaaa” that rises within us when we contemplate replacing our retail therapy, self-medicating with chocolate (or something stronger), cigarette breaks, closet clutter, insert-your-poison-here, with healthier, more productive choices. Resistance promotes procrastination. It encourages addictions. It actually prefers an unhealthy status quo, “the devil you know,” to the scary uncertainty of change. And it does what it feels it must to keep everything in place. Saboteur! I’ve also heard these mental manipulations called “secondary benefits” and “hidden agendas” because, whether we know it or not, they are act...

Why We Make Resolutions: What We Really Want As I sit here, fingers on the keyboard, I find myself thinking about dark chocolate covered almonds, The Daily Show, my unmade bed, the disturbing headlines – everything but the task at hand … That task would be completing this three-part blog on New Year’s resolutions. (It’s mid-January, and the year is aging rapidly … ) But it could just as easily be cleaning my apartment, eating healthier, making those difficult phone calls. Because like you, I suffer from resistance, which we discussed in Part 2. I too find very reasonable sounding reasons not to do what I say I want to do, not to honor my word, not to hold myself accountable for the choices I’ve made, not to follow through on working towards the things I say I want in my life … Depending upon the day/hour, the reasons range from the ridiculous to the sublime: I’d rather eat chocolate! Earthquake victims are still suffering in Haiti! I can’t do this – I’m a fraud! ...