Three Ways To Guarantee Your New Year’s Resolutions
It all starts with the courage to dream big!
Hello friends! 👋
I wish you and your loved ones a Happy New Year!
May this be a year of strength, connection, and creativity - after all, we are kicking off the year with a Sunday, a Super Sunday nonetheless! 😁💪
As always, my gratitude goes out to each of you for helping make this project a reality; the community keeps growing thanks to your trust and help in broadly sharing it.
This is by far the most compact and densely packed posts.
Over the next five weeks, we will unpack the themes discussed in this post. I aim to keep it short and help you jumpstart your January to make 2023 your best year yet!
Let’s dive straight in!
♥️ BE THE BEST IN THE WORLD AT WHAT YOU LOVE
I’ve mentioned before how doing what you love is the biggest favor you can do for yourself and others around you.
When we do what we love, we are most creative. This creative energy is the essence of being alive; to actualize our purpose, to express our uniqueness, and to advance our collective human existence.
Everyone I speak to agrees, yet I am surprised by how very little have put in the time and effort to actually focus on that and make it a reality.
We need the courage to allow ourselves to dream big - Aristotle tells us courage is the heart that sustains all other virtues.
Indeed, courage flows from the heart; a mother driven by passion will do the impossible to protect her child. To do what we are passionate about is the ultimate expression of courage.
It doesn’t matter what we love to do; we only need love it enough to be the best in the world at it. Whether it is managing an organization, studying, socializing, or even playing games.
🎯 BE CREATIVE BEFORE REACTIVE
Two words with the same spelling yet a completely different result.
Most people start their day by checking in with the world and all its inputs.
I have been guilty of spending YEARS going to bed with my phone every night and waking up by checking my phone (mostly entertaining myself with social media, and at other times actually working through my email. Yikes! 🤢)
However, as I was doing my annual reflection in September (which isn’t in January, but on my birthday because that’s when MY year starts, and that makes it a lot more personal), I realized that I’ve done in a year more than I’ve done in the past five years combined!
That was shocking to me.
Digging into what worked in the year, I realized that my commitment to check-in with myself first thing in the morning and use my “prime time” to create what I am passionate about was the number one reason for my achievements.
Instead of blowing up my consciousness with the multiple inputs of the world (which really never changed had I overslept an extra hour or two), I am using all the creative juices to make my personal dream more of a reality.
Once we expose our minds to the reactive series, they fire neural networks on auto-pilot (due to the dopamine hits associated, more on that later). Before we know it, we are seven layers deep in instagram, twitter, google, email, or mere thoughts on auto-pilot.
Breaking the very simple habit of being reactive was the most challenging yet the most significant.
Pulling up the courage to dream big creates a pull for me to prioritize myself and use my mornings effectively.
🧠 PRE-COMMIT | COMMIT | RE-COMMIT
I talked earlier about willpower and the three schools of thought scientists believe in.
I tend to agree with all of them, and I tried to capture that in the title.
The three steps to getting anything done have to flow in order:
Pre-Commit: our why and our story is the utmost driver for our motivation - without knowing why we want to do what we do and committing to being that identity that acts accordingly, our willpower will inevitably fail us.
Pre-commit on who you are and what you will do, when you will do it, for how long, and how often.
Commit: our willpower is still our superpower! Each time you deliver on your commitment, you give a vote to the identity you decided to be.
Pre-commit smartly to deliver on your commitment and do what you promised yourself to do. When the time for the act comes - ACT!
Re-commit: whether we like it or not, there will be days when we will fail (welcome to being human! 😊), and when we do, do we face it with blame and shame? How does that work for us? We can face ourselves with compassion and a learner’s mindset to recommit instantly!
Compassion allows us to see clearly while preserving our self-esteem and confidence. When we see clearly, we can bring a learner’s mindset to understand what we can do better next time.
Back to you now;
What is one thing you are fired about?
Do you love it enough to prioritize it over others?
Can you pre-commit, commit, and re-commit on what you need to do to be the best in the world at it?
It is my hope that I can help you make this your best year yet, if you are willing to allow yourself to do so.
I will unpack different concepts throughout our Jumpstart January (we now have a name 😄).
Wishing you a Happy New Year again!
Have a Super Sunday! 💪
Hashim
I really related to this article! Its so normal now to set new years goals and then drop them soon after. To be honest its something I really struggle with because I find it hard to get into the habit of something. I tend to commit but forget to re-commit. This article has helped me figure out how I should set goals that I would love to achieve as well as still stick to them even if i'm not feeling motivated some days. Hopefully we all achieve our new years resolutions this year!
Although I'm about a week late to this, happy new year to everyone!
I love how these articles are so relatable and explain psychological concepts in a way that isn't difficult to understand. Personally, I always struggle to commit to my new year's resolutions, often completely abandoning them about a week into the new year. But, this year, by pre-committing, committing, and re-committing, I find that this year I may really have a chance in sticking to my resolutions.