'Tis the season for making vows, isn't it? We'll start doing this, we'll stop doing that. We all know the dismal sucess rate of New Year's resolutions, the guilt that starts creeping up around March 15th when we realize, mid-doughnut, that we haven't been to the gym in two weeks.
That's why I call them reso-pollutions. Most of us carelessly throw resolutions out at the start of the year, with every intention to follow through on them. But then, we return to our daily lives and, suddenly, all of our unmet resolutions spill out of the ResoDump and pile up around us - not just the ones made this year, but resolutions from years past. Suddenly, we're up to our ears in old resolutions, faced with all of the times we promised to do something, or to stop doing something, and FAILED. The stench of guilt becomes overpowering. That little voice in the back of your head says "See, you never follow through on anything. Why do you even bother?" It's uncomfortable and unsightly. We don't want to deal with it. So we cram the pile, bigger now, back in the ResoDump and lock the gate, where it all stays until the following New Years Eve, when we do the whole thing over again.
Why do most reso-pollutions fail? Personally, I think they fail because they tend to come from a place of lack, or from a focus on the negative. Take quitting smoking, a resolution I am intimately familiar with. Like most smokers, I'd made quit attempts numerous times using numerous methods, all of which failed. To make an extremely long story short, I've been a non-smoker for two years now (despite a brief relapse, admittedly) because I stopped focusing on quitting smoking - something that made me feel deprived - and instead focused on what I WANTED. I wanted freedom, a healthy body, more money in my pocket. Smoking just didn't fit in with my wants anymore.
In business, it's easy to resolve to "make more money this year" or to "get more clients". And we're told to make our goals specific: "I'll make $100K this year" or "I'll get twenty new clients". But often, there's a hidden tagline to our goals that we may not even be aware of. "I'll make 100K this year (because I'm only making X dollars now and it's not enough, and we need to fix the roof and Jilly needs braces and man, I better make that 100K or else)." We write out steps to take to reach our goals, all the while feeling the lack of them. It's no wonder we fail to reach them - all we're thinking about is what happens if we don't.
If I'd focused on what would happen if I didn't quit smoking - "I don't want cancer" or "I have to quit because it's bad for my health" - I'd end up back on it. Done it a million times. It was only when I changed my THINKING about smoking that I was able to put it down, and keep a relapse from turning into something bigger. I don't have the "I will quit smoking" reso-pollution stinking up my mental yard, because I never dumped it there in the first place. Instead, I planted a want - "I want to be healthy. I want to feel healthy." And as that want bloomed, it began to repel anything that didn't help it to grow. (I know, I know...insert new-agey panflute music here.)
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Resolve to stop making resolutions! Take one resolution that you made this year (or choose from last year's litter) and see if it focuses on the lack of something. Does "I'll keep my files organized" have "because I'm such a slob and I can never find anything and I hate being stressed out all the time, god what's my problem anyway?" as a tagline? Use that negative tagline to find out what you really want - in this case, to feel relaxed in your workspace. If you focus on wanting to feel relaxed in your workspace, you'll naturally start doing things that help you feel that way. And if old habits do surface, ask yourself if they fit with what you really want.
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