Resolutions

It’s that time again, isn’t it?

We all make our New Year’s Resolutions, secretly or publicly, some serious, some in jest, more often than not closer to a wish than a resolve.

The truth is that New Year’s Resolutions have at their heart a a resolve to change a habit. “I want to lose thirty pounds!”, if it’s to be more than wishing upon a star, means that I’ll need to curtail most of my favourite comfort foods and drinks, and “dismount my donkey” (“get off my a__”) a lot more. In other words, it’s hard, and it’s not much fun.

The good news about New Year’s Resolutions is that they give us an excuse, a plausibility, to express a wish about our better selves and our better future. They describe the “us” we’d like to be.

The bad news about New Year’s Resolutions is that we usually don’t make provision for the journey, so before long we abandon them. Keeping a resolution is a journey, not a wish.

A resolution is not worth the breath it takes to utter unless there is also a plan to make it work. Magic wands are not part of the process. If you expect the resolution to stick, there has to be a hard, cold, analysis of why you need, or want, to make the change. Until your disgust with your existing situation or your hunger for the new situation is deep enough and intense enough, you will never have the fuel to take you to the end of your journey.

A resolution made in the shadows is always doomed, because you’ve left yourself a back door. It’s always best to go public and set yourself up for accountability. Tough love is best applied to oneself.

A resolution without a plan, even a simple one, is also doomed. “I will climb Mt. Everest” is a charming idea, but in my current flabby state, it ain’t gonna happen! Between my easy chair and the pinnacle lies a lot of training and expense, and if I don’t get my mind and my body around that notion, I will never join the short list of Everest conquerors. Gotta have a plan of execution.

But mostly, successful resolutions are fuelled by some burning purpose. In fact, if your sense of purpose is strong enough, you haven’t waited for New Year’s Day, you are already hard at it.

Some little while ago, Karen and I committed to each other that we would together lose a total of fifty pounds before our fiftieth wedding anniversary next August. Of course, she’s doing much better than I am. It may turn out to be forty for her and ten for me, but already my belt is in one notch.

That was our New Year’s Resolution, just a little early.

And you?