Change in the New Year

Can I promise how to make your New Year’s Resolutions come true? Some folks almost seem to.

Among those a bit more realistic about an endeavor with such spotty success rates, there are some who offer very detailed – and sometimes helpful – guidance about the ‘how-to’s’ of resolution-making and resolution-keeping. That’s not this!

If you’re seeking method with focus and resolve for personal planning, both strategic and tactical, there are other good guides. Meaning: If you’re well-prepared and almost there, seek out a how-to guide to propose, plan and produce.

If, though, your thoughts on the new year are more gestational, aspirational and even transformational, I may have an idea for you.

Looking for change in the new year? Look at being before doing.

That is, establish a habit before you pursue a resolution.

 Being before doing

Can you translate some of your thoughts about a resolution into describing the sort of person who does that new thing, and does that new thing somewhat naturally, or at least habitually? The new thing is hard to impossible for who you are but fits with who this other kind of person is.

Example – It’s pretty common to choose weight loss as a resolution. A person who chooses mostly to exercise rather than snack when feeling anxiety is often a person who has less ongoing trouble with their weight. Weight loss for a New Year’s Resolution? Now that sounds interesting! Be a person who chooses exercise, not eating, when anxiety strikes and lose weight for New Year’s!

But it’s really more and less than meets the eye.

More, in that you need to know yourself and your habits. You need to know that your weight is not mainly coming from something else: 1) drinking too much, or 2) having great, rich food available; loving fellowship over a meal; AND not being very disciplined about portion control, or 3) meeting longing with eating, finding ‘answers’ to missing parts of your life or identity in a diet awash in simple sugars or starchy/fatty ‘comforts’.

(Please, if you’re just 10 pounds heavy around the middle, don’t subject yourself to an existential quest for psychological redefinition. The examples here speak to struggles with personal habits of eating and the overweight results which can come from them. For many others, lightening up may come with a little encouragement to “lighten up.”)

This resolution solution to weight loss is also less than meets the eye. It’s not mentioning the biggest, hairiest part of this working. You not only need to see the sort of person you want to become; you also need the motivation and resolve to actually get there – becoming that person, thus realizing the happy side effects along with it.

See what you want to be and live the path of resolve to be it. So it won’t be lost in an idea too big or vague to pursue, define ‘new being’ over-simplistically as having certain habits and put those habits into practice.

Shorthand on another example – Procrastination is on your list. It’s a problem that builds its own momentum in the form of inertia. It has a raft of negative consequences for you. But it’s sometimes hard to own the problem because you find times when your action is delayed by seeing all the sides of an issue along with its depth. And how can that be a weakness? Isn’t that a strength?

Yes, and no. If all “to do’s” are met with depth and comprehensiveness, then daily life doesn’t get done. The issues deserving of depth are lost in the pile of stuff for which you have no ‘get ‘er done’ ability. That’s a problem! Be the sort of person who gives weight to issues of gravity while enjoying the clarity and momentum of completion in most of the daily detritus.

How does being before doing work here? How’s it workin’ for ya resolving to delay action less and not put off getting things done? Well, after all, isn’t there value in seeing deeply? So, not so well, huh?

Practice a habit where you assess – immediately – stuff that comes up as either “deep” or “shallow”.

Don’t take it too seriously. Play a bit, but do it. You can’t start with more than half getting the “deep” label. Work each month to cut deep and add shallow by 10%, getting down to 10% deep in total in four months. For “shallow” items that arise, schedule – immediately – on whatever your planning device is, to act within 24 hours. Action may not be completion. You’ll get there. But schedule to act, or act right away if you can. Start to feel the wind beneath your wings.

So, isn’t that just a resolution with an action strategy? You’re right. Decide whether you think it’s a worthwhile one for you to consider. But where is the “being”?

Become the kind of person who sees real, deep, comprehensive value in the act of acting. Each time something comes up that needs doing, rehearse the deep value of labeling it deep or shallow and planning fast action. The value is real. Be the person who sees it and speaks it.

If that’s very much ‘not you’, then the “being” part is going to be lots tougher than the “doing” of category and commit to act. But being that person will allow the habit to be established. And establishing the habit will bring the positive feedback loop. That loop doesn’t define the depth of human choice and resolve, but it is an honest part of the dynamics of daily human action. 

I’d like to apply this to some very different and more personal kinds of issues. Included will be the intimacy of relationship with God, and also my own pursuit of greater investment in personal, person-to-person relationships.

Those are for Part Two of this post, next week.