My New Year’s Resolutions.
In the past, I used to struggle with my goals. I would set them arbitrarily, I wouldn’t keep track of them and I would end up failing. But eventually, I was able to change things for the better.
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New year’s resolutions tend to get a bad rap and I totally get it. They have a notoriously high failure rate and whether or not you succeed, some claim that they can be an unhealthy way to ignite change. Why? Is it the time of year? Do we tend to naïvely over-estimate our own abilities? Are we not harnessing the natural energy of the universe!? 😱
Honestly, I don’t blame those who reject the idea of setting resolutions. It’s incredibly frustrating and painful when one loses a challenge over and over. But there’s light at the end of this dark tunnel.
When I was a young lad, the average ‘goal’ that I would set myself didn’t have much thought and intention behind it. With that, I was almost destined to fail before I’d even started. As I grew, I read into what makes people successful and now, I engineer that success into my goals. So the question is: How exactly do we generate more success in all of our goals?
Atomic Habits is a book that helps us answer this question.
Here is a video summarising some of it’s key concepts:
Essentially:
Small habits lead to big changes. - If you get 1% better each day, you’ll be 37x better by the end of the year. “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” So focus on the small improvements and celebrate the little wins.
Focus on systems, not goals. - Goals are the ‘what’ that you want to achieve whereas the system is the ‘how’ you are going to get those results. Plan your goals out. What time do you want to get to the gym every day? What are you going to do before and after? etc.
Focus on identity, not goals. - One level deeper, focus on ‘who’ you want to be rather than ‘what’ you want to achieve. The priority is (1) who, then (2) how, then (3) what. Take for example, someone who wants to quit smoking. He can identify as ‘someone trying to quit’ or he can identify as ‘someone who doesn’t smoke’.
4 Laws of Behaviour Change. - Make it: (1) Obvious, (2) Attractive, (3) Easy and (4) Satistfying. If you can get to the gym, the obvious thing to do is work out. If you like listening to music, then do that while you gym. Bring a friend, if that makes it more fun. Set the bar low, tell yourself that you’ll only have to get to the gym. Even a simple checklist of daily habits makes things satisfying to accomplish.
Be patient. - To see meaningful results our habits need to persist for long enough.
My Goals
Here are some of the goals that I want to focus on this year. In the spirit of keeping this short, I’ll talk more about how I’ll go about them in another article.
Take gym more seriously
Take basketball more seriously
Take reading more seriously
Take more pictures
Gym
Last year, somewhere along the line, the gym started becoming a ‘side-thing’. Even when I brought myself to go to the gym, it was a passive endeavour. I wasn’t focused and I didn’t have much intention behind the weight. I was given a sharp reminder when an old friend of mine asked me: “What happened? You used to be massive!” I walked away from that interaction with my tail between my legs, but also a fire stoked within…
Basketball
I started playing basketball when I came to university, so I wasn’t surprised to find out that I wasn’t very good at it. Fast-forward a few years and I’m on even ground with many people I play with. I’m fairly athletic, I can shoot pretty well and my handles are decent. But I was taken down a peg when I started playing 1v1 with better players. One thing I noticed was how consistently accurate their shooting is. Again, I’d leave these games, tail between the legs but a fire stoked within…
Reading
I have a seemingly never-ending list of books to read and I’ve been going through them at a snail’s pace. On the other hand, I don’t want to breeze past these books without taking in the lessons. My goal here is to be more intentional about it, to learn more by the end of the year, even if that means I don’t read at the fastest possible pace.
Pictures
I want to remember the places I’ve been, the people I was with and the feelings I felt. What better way to capture that than with a photo?
