Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail. And What To Do About It.

New Year’s resolutions start with dreams and hope…

But the reality is that most get dashed against the reefs of doubt and stalled at the starting gate.

Dreams die in fear.

Fear that it won’t work.

Fear that you will fail.

Fear of loss .

Fear of the unknown.

So we embrace the familiar and step back into its comfort.

We stall.

That’s the place where we fall. 

The inaction unnoticed.

Part of us wants a new and exciting future. 

To soar rather than crawl. 

We seem to be wired to neuter.

The hope that was within our dreaming young self is often caged. 

Left behind and forgotten. 

The result?

Regret.

Enraged. 

In old age.

We make it hobble. 

Forgetting the daydream that leads to the possible.

The safe self would rather withdraw into the vicarious corner of living through other people. 

We TikTok and Instagram and watch others with voyeur eyes. 

Judging our fearful insides by the outside veneer of others.

Forgetting to create for ourselves. 

Living second hand lives. 

We dive into the social media images of others and forget to make our own today.  

If you never start… 

That means you have already failed.  

Resistance to starting is a built-in self protection switch.

We stay with what works today instead of choosing a dream that may reveal the sweet taste of a tomorrow realized. 

Because that comes with the possibility of failure. 

Safe knowing sits between numbing normalcy and aspired and actualized adventure.

We stay with the known rather than explore the promise of the unknown. 

Failure is an option but its teachings are invigorating. 

But palpitating.

A mistake is either a learning or a turning. 

Back.

That’s a mindset setback.

But you choose. 

Win or lose.

True education is not a college degree.

It’s a journey of learning by doing.

The rigor mortis of familiar trumps the journey of the unknown place of growing and the yet to be explored curiosity that was our child. 

We’d like to peer around the corner and climb over the mountain.

Instead we just open the same box of the safe. 

We want to start on the trail yet we are still sitting in the carpark and looking out the window. 

By letting the resistance of inaction and fear take control we leave behind the forgotten child of joyful play to be placed in the calcified corner of safe decay. 

So what does the new year promise?

We all have 365 days. 

What do you do with that?

Unfulfilled resolutions?

Or personal revolutions.

Acted on.

Or paused in fear? 

We daydream and want more but our programming traps us in frozen frameworks of the familiar.

Cognitive bias works in a slow moving world.

But restrains us in the revolving world of fast and constant change. 

We see with eyes that have been taught to lean into others templates rather than our own matrix and the metaverse of our potential.  

So how do you implement?

Act in imperfect forment?

So how do you move?

How do you choose?

How do you act?

Make a pact.

To start?  

Starting requires movement.

Not a neuron notion.

An act.

Motivation is simple but hard to reveal.

Unless you tap your drive hidden amongst the dross of life. 

Moving forward is often forced.   

Flow is needed. 

Action comes out of the tension between the paradox of fear and the quiet motivation that shows up everyday as an often ignored and discarded idea. 

Finding what you love and loving what you do is a duality. 

The ambiguity of passion and process.

Heart and mind. 

Finding what you love is…

Where an idea meets your passionate purpose.

Or a problem observed that meets a possible solution.

That’s the resolution 

Of the dream.

Curiosity that taps your innate strengths is a good place to start.

That is for you to discover.

That’s the whisper.

An art.

Loving what you do…

Is a daily practice and a process.

That is sitting down everyday and doing the work. 

Strapping yourself in writing one word. Then another.

The mundane becomes magic as the daily art of imperfect creation turns from playing the scales to creating a symphony.  

The art of the start is an action that takes an idea and makes it real.

That’s the only way to make a difference

And change worlds.

Yours and theirs.

Nothing happens until you start.

Make this year the one where dreams grow.

And flow.

Create and share your art. 

The post Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail. And What To Do About It. appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/why-new-years-resolutions-fail/