Welcome to a new sparkly, fresh and clean New Year – 2021! We have big expectations for you 2021, even if we need to deal with some 2020 remnants.
Welcome also to a new year of people declaring promises to themselves or to others about what they are going to do differently this year. Only to see them break them only a few weeks later.
Let me be clear, I am not casting dispersions on anyone trying to change their life. Change is hard, man! I am barracking for them to make a success of changes they want to make.
Before I run through the reasons why New Year’s Resolutions fail, lets congratulate those with the right intention.
Congratulate yourself for the intention to work on improving yourself. The intention is a great one and well done to you.
REASONS WHY RESOLUTIONS FAIL
Immediacy Effect
Often the New Year’s Resolutions have been made the morning after a night of indulging. Change that people want to make is what is “front of mind” at the time, for example eat less food, drink less alcohol, get more sleep, do more movement. The immediacy means that they are more a reaction rather than making a considered change they wish to make. A considered change generally has solid foundations arrived at after a period of reflecting or dreaming, with supporting strategies in place to assist make them an enduring change.
Not writing them down
Declaring the changes, you are going to make in the wee hours of the morning or the day after, is often not enough for them to be acted on. To make them enduring you need to write them down. You can record them any way you wish, vision boards, journal, or a life map (that you get from Designing your Life, on Purpose)
A Harvard Business study revealed that 14% of people with goals are 10 times more successful than those without goals. Astonishingly, the 3% that have written goals are 3 times more successful than the 14% with unwritten goals.
Yay you for having goals in the first place! If you write them down you will be even more successful. I have chosen to interpret this study as more successful in achieving the goals they set out to achieve, as opposed to some arbitrary rules of success.
Personally, I have found that when I have them recorded on my life map for each year, it has a galvanising effect. I can get distracted with new shiny things all the time, and having my dreams (BTW I call them dreams, much funner) written down, means I can check if the new shiny thing is something I want to swap for an existing dream or something I can defer to the next year or years plans.
The other aspect of having them written means at the quarter and half year marks, it is much easier to reflect on progress and either adjust dreams or adjust tack.
Where does dreaming come in?
It is great to look at improvements, but they are only part of the picture. What are you trying to improve or move towards? Being really clear on what you are striving towards will make heaps of difference. Knowing what your overall focus towards the life that is perfect for you, will ensure that each year you are moving closer to that ideal. This requires you to start thinking about all the wonderful dreams you have and then select which ones to focus on now. As with point 1 you might find you have reflected on something and created a goal around it, and it might not lead you towards the life you want. So, ensure that the goal is helping you towards your dreams.
One of my favourite quotes is
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get your there”
I find this a really powerful way to check in and make sure you are choosing the right path for you.
There is reflection and then there is REFLECTION
You might have taken a lot of care to be able to determine what the focus for your New Year will be and you might not have. When I run Design your Life, On Purpose (DYLOP) workshops and retreats, the pre-requisite is REFLECTION REVOLUTION. This is a pre-requisite because deep reflection is an essential tool in every day life and has the power to radically change your direction. Around 50% of people who attend DYLOP think they know exactly where they need to focus, to find with reflection and dreaming, that they change the direction. The more you practice this skill the more you get better at it and being able to tap into the unuttered needs, buried deep within the stomach.
Support strategies
Not every dream will be successful on its first outing. This can mean you might falter at the first hurdle. Building support strategies will mean that you have put in mechanism to help refocus your attention back to the dream. Ensuring the dream is the right focus is really important, it centres you, giving an assurance. Ensuring that you build in things that will make you more successful, also helps. Let’s explain this with an example; Let’s say your dream is to move more. A support strategy might be to put your walking clothes and shoes in sight as soon as you wake up, so you trip over them on the way to the bathroom or every hour on the dot you stand up for 10 mins. These strategies then will support your success.
Intention is super good, let’s just encourage it to be more enduring, by putting in the following supporting structures.
MORE SUCCESSFUL DREAMS
The following are the strategies you can help to get more out of the New Year Resolution or at any stage in the year that you decide to focus on something different, some change you would like to make.
1. Really invest in reflecting and build the habit. Start by journaling every day, reflecting on the day that has been and capturing a minimum of 3 things you are grateful for.
2. Allow yourself to Dream and build this habit. Start a dream journal, where you capture only dreams, all and every dream.
3. Write the dreams down. By recording the dream in some way, vision board, painting, written plan you are more likely to be successful.
4. Determine what support strategies you need and put them in place. Think through what has tripped you up in the past and what you can put in place to be more successful this time.
HOW I CAN HELP
Below you will find links to courses that will support you in your new improved plans. Luckily for you, these are starting soon or can be accessed at any time.
REFLECTION REVOLUTION
Reflection Revolution is about developing the other super habit of reflection.
This will be perfect for someone who wants to check-in on where they are now. This can sometimes mean they are not 100% happy with today, but unsure about what aspects are not working.
Reflection revolution is supported with live webinars to explain the process, set people up, and answer the ‘what now?” question, as well as receive templates via the post.
More information and sign up for Reflection Revolution are here at a cost of $100, starting in the first week in February 2021.
DREAM QUEST
Dream Quest is designed to kick start the critical super habit of dreaming. Without this super habit of dreaming it is hard to know what you are designing your life towards.
As dreaming is a perpetual habit, something you can contribute to every day, Dream Quest can be accessed at any time. Dream Questers will receive drip fed templates in the post, to allow them to think, percolate and document their dreams,
Dream Quest can be accessed at any time, but markers of time, like the beginning of a New Year are good times to help support the habit of dreaming. All the information and sign up for Dream Quest is here at a cost of $75.
DESIGN YOUR LIFE ON PURPOSE
This workshop includes all the elements of the 4-step methodology, reflect, dream, design and act in enough detail to get you underway with your Strategic Life Map, including support mechanisms.
The workshop will cover all steps to have more successful dreams.
Perfect for:
This workshop is ideal for people who are ready to Design their Life on Purpose. It will help people who either:
1. Know exactly what they want to do, but are unsure how or have some blocks to overcome
2. Unsure what they want to design their life around, or know what they do not want
The one-day workshop would be held late March, in a Sydney location at a cost of $750.
Expressions of interest can be made here.