BE BETTER THAN YESTERDAY

So we are one month into the new year, where did the last 34 days go? We’ve all heard the stats about the high number of people who have already “failed” and given up on their new year resolutions, but this idea that we have failed if we have not been able to change our behaviour 1 month into a new year is stupid. What if we looked at our new year resolutions from a different angle, from a higher vantage point that actually empowered us to crush our goals. Instead of forcing yourself to stick to a new behaviour or restrict yourself from certain old behaviours for the whole year, why not give yourself a better challenge? What about telling yourself that by the end of 2019 I am going to transform myself by becoming the person who [INSERT NEW YEAR RESOLUTION].

“by the end of2019 I am going to transform myself by becoming the person who exercises every day”

“by the end of 2019 I am going to transform myself by becoming the person who doesn’t eat sugar”

“by the end of 2019 I am going to transform myself by becoming the person who journals every morning”

“by the end of 2019 I am going to transform myself by becoming the person who gets to bed by 9pm“

Whatever your goal is, reframe it as a challenge for the whole year that you are going pursue, and not a goal that you are going to stick to until you have a moment of weakness, then give up because you “failed”. Get it into your head that you are guaranteed to fail at your goal, but that’s part of the process of developing a new behaviour. The trick is to wake up every morning with a fresh attitude and try again! Think about the hardest behaviours to change, addictions! In Alcoholics Anonymous, they tell their members to take it one day at a time, to focus on the one day ahead of them, and if they stumble, start again. Why don’t we take this same approach to our everyday behaviour change? If it can work for something such as drug and alcohol addictions, it only makes sense to apply it to our own addictions that we are trying to break, and yes many of our behaviours we are trying to change have some type of addiction element.

Want to exercise more but can’t – you may be addicted to comfort

Want to eat healthily – you may be addicted to sugar

Want to sleep better – you may be addicted to the internet

Of course, there are many deeper aspects to addictions, but that doesn’t remove the fact that you are alive, that you have a new day, and you have a choice to choose. How do you think your life would change if you were to “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”?