Have you broken any New Years Resolutions yet? Go on be honest…
Well I’m pleased to say that I haven’t. Why? Because I haven’t set any.
For 99.99999% of people NYRs are pointless and don’t work; they know this already! This is because they expect a big change to occur at a preset date and time which is such a shock that the mind cannot manage and so the NYR is broken. Also people love to put something off until later; it means they don’t have to do it now.
Instead of NYRs I set objectives for the year, some of which I know (or hope) I’ll complete before the end of the year. Although I don’t like new years resolutions I always get the natural urge to look at the year ahead with a sense of “new year, new start, and a hope for better”; and I think that’s fine.
Like most people I find change hard (unlike most people I’m not afraid to admit it). Lifestyle changes are hard, we do things the way we do them because over time it suits what we naturally want (whether that’s good or bad), our energy, mindset and outlook on life.
The trouble with NYRs is that once you break it you’re back to your old self. With Objectives it doesn’t matter if you break the rule because you’ve got time to recover.
So, if you’ve broken your NYR(s) already convert them into objectives and then work out what you need to do to achieve those objectives and get on with step 1 (or what we in the GTD world call the Next Action).
Until the next post…
