Five new year resolutions you can't keep (and one you can)

Let's face it. You have some sort of new year's resolution that you know you'll fail at. You hope you won't. You may even be excited to finally start being the person you have always dreamed of being but somehow kept putting off for next year. But we all know how that's going to turn out.

Fast forward to mid-January and you're already back to your old self with your old habits and your old vices (that you like calling guilty pleasures) and you promise yourself that you'll keep your promises next time around. There's always a next time, you figure, so why beat yourself up over it?

The thing is new year's resolutions signal new beginnings and the hope that things will be better this year, that you will be better this year. But that rarely extends beyond the first 15 days of it.

So here are five new year's resolutions that I promise you'll fail at if you have made them. Don't worry, dear reader, because, in this article, I'll also tell you why failure is guaranteed for each of them (and how to get out of that rut).

I will exercise more this year.

The thing about exercise is this. The age of internet propaganda and the 10/10 physiques that you're force-fed every three seconds conceals the brutal truth of consistency and discipline. Having been in and out of gyms for a few years now, I have understood that motivation counts for jacksh*t when it comes to exercising and building a physique you can be proud of.

When it comes to exercise, discipline is everything. There are no shortcuts, no secret tips, and no easy way outs whatsoever. And people don't understand that. For the uninitiated, the gym is like a magic box fuelled by your motivation and the amount of money you can pour into it, that'll help you re-emerge with a physique that'll put Steve Rogers to shame! Unfortunately, it isn't.

If you're motivated, good for you! Now go convert that into discipline, and you'll be golden, my friend!

I will learn a new skill.

We all know what this is like. This year, I'll learn a language. This new year, I'll learn to play the guitar. This new year, I'll learn to do a backflip without being sent to meet Jesus! You get my drift.

I'm here to tell you that you'll fail. And not because you aren't any good at learning. You may even be one of the better ones who learn quickly. That's not the reason you can't. The reason is that learning a skill is hard. It's boring. It's hours of drilling without seeing any tangible results, and still feeling like maybe you're never gonna be able to impress that cute Japanese girl you met online with your impeccable kokuhaku for her!

The result? You give up after a couple of weeks. It just isn't worth all the effort you were putting in.

I will quit smoking/drinking/porn.

I take no sick pleasure in raining on your parade but no, you won't. You will resist for a few days maybe, but this is one of the hardest resolutions to keep. Only the champions of willpower may emerge victorious. The rest will be lured in by the lucrative sight of their substance of choice in some corner of the house that screams at them as they try to go on their way, asserting "You shall not pass!" (thank you, Gandalf!)

Let's be serious here. You know it needs to be said. Short-term pleasures are the worst kind of problems to exist in our lives, and the hardest to let go of. They affect us on both biological and psychological levels and spill over to our social lives as well. Their pervasiveness is what makes them insanely difficult to cut out of our lives. And planning to abstain from them forever just won't cut it.

I will read more.

Reading is a skill that we develop early on in school. Reading is also a skill that most of us never really develop at all. Hold up, what? What I mean is that in the modern world of constant distractions, it is easy to give up on the good old habit of reading (thank God for this platform though!). So, at the start of the new year, maybe you buy a bunch of books you had wanted to read for some time (or even take the old ones off your shelf to read for the first time). You start leafing through the pages enthusiastically, until that first yawn.

But wait. You promised yourself you'll read. So you battle through the yawns, all the while thinking about what your favorite influencer's latest food experience has been on the coast of Greece or Italy or wherever the heck they are off to now. And then, before you know it, you're on Instagram, the poor old book consigned to the shelf to collect dust for the next 364 days.

I will spend more time with family and friends.

Yes, we all want that. Most of us do try. Few of us succeed. In this hyperfast world driven by money and status, it is easy to fail at this one. Meaningful interactions are becoming increasingly rare in the personal space, and we all pay for it with our loneliness and burnout.

But I hear you lament, dear reader. If only there was some way I could keep this one! And there is. But it's not easy. It requires a conscious effort every day, something that modern culture didn't teach us as children. We grew up driven by the need to do more, to be more, and going against that hardwired instinct is difficult, if not impossible for most. Relationships are an art, and it's foolish to think we can master them just because we decided to.

But why do I keep failing?

There are three reasons why you keep failing your new year's resolutions. Let me explain.

Planning fallacy

We humans have a peculiar tendency to overestimate our abilities and underestimate the demands of any task. Ask any random student how long it will take to complete a tough assignment, and you'll see this fallacy in action. Despite knowing that the past was a mixed bag in terms of outcomes, we are way too optimistic about the future. New year's resolutions are subject to the same human limitation. Like I said before, keeping resolutions is hard work, and we don't realize that until we've started trying. Once we do realize, however, we are more than willing to fail than keep trying.

Overemphasis on goals

Don't get me wrong. It's great to have goals. It's just not that great to rely on them. Goals are fantastic reminders of why you are doing something, but they work less well (sometimes not at all) when you have to do the same (boring) stuff day in and day out because you promised yourself you would. Overemphasizing goals creates an incongruence between where you are and where you'd like to be, and throws the discrepancy in your face like your partner's reminder of the time you screwed up ten years ago! Slapped like this by reality, you lose face in front of yourself and simply give up that pursuit.

Relying on motivation

If you haven't figured it out already, motivation is a fickle friend and will betray you the first chance it gets. Relying on it is like relying on the government to secure your future.

It. Just. Won't. Happen.

So, stop watching those motivational workout videos and get up to do something. Most days will be utterly frustrating and will make you wish you had never begun. You will question your choices but stick through them. Finally, there will come a day when you will have mastered whatever you set out to achieve this year, and you will look at yourself in the mirror and go "You know what? That guy on the internet was right. Motivation didn't do jacksh*t for me. My habits did."

The one resolution you can keep

Now, this is the real deal, so listen up. We've already established that goals and motivation don't mean much if you want to improve yourself this year. So, what is the one promise you can keep?

I will show up today.

You read that right. Showing up today is the key. Not every single day. Just today. Whether it's exercising, learning a skill, quitting a vice, reading more, or spending time with family, make sure you show up today, even if you don't want to.

This does two things.

First, it lets you set micro-goals. These are goals that are so small that you feel completely in control of them. The high self-efficacy associated with them lets you feel that they are easily accomplished. That way, you're not standing at the foot of the mountain and looking at the summit anymore; you're just looking to take that first step. That's easy, isn't it?

Second, it lets you reframe your goals as systems. Goals are inherently intimidating. The loftier your aims are, the most intimidated you're likely to be. Setting a system, on the other hand, lets you build a habit. And when you're dismantling old behaviors and building new ones, habit-setting is the undisputed king of strategies.

So, let's end by setting micro-goals and reframing our five doomed-to-fail resolutions into systems. Remember to keep the focus only on today, and repeat the same every single day. Tomorrow is not your concern, so don't even think about it. So, here are the reframed resolutions (drum roll please):

I will push myself hard in the gym today.

I will learn 20 new words in Japanese and listen to a native speaker speak today.

I will not smoke or drink or watch porn today.

I will read 10 pages of my favorite book today.

I will call my family and speak to them for at least 10 minutes today.

Simple, isn't it? Rather than focusing on the entire year ahead of you, you set yourself the smallest possible goals just for today. And at the end of the day, you're just a tiny bit better than you were when you woke up this morning.

So, keep setting these micro-goals for yourself and redefining them as systems. Wake up tomorrow and do the same. And then the day after. Soon, you will have transformed yourself into the person you always dreamed of being.

Maybe then you'll realize that being great is not a goal, but a habit.

Originally published on Medium.

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