How Are We Doing On Our New Year's Resolutions and Plans?

One Month Into 2014 – Any Signs Of Breakthrough Moments Yet?

Habits, routines and expertise are the enemy of breakthroughs. We can't expect new outcomes, or breakthroughs as I prefer, by doing the same things over and over again. In fact, that has be labelled, the definition of insanity in a now much over used cliche. 

Easy to say, who'd argue that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes will not produce breakthroughs, but then what? So how do we create new habits and new routines? Well, we'll get to that, because it gets pretty obvious, pretty quickly, that replicating the behaviors of the past are unlikely, excepting for luck, to produce breakthroughs.

One thing I know for sure is that in the face of our lack of success in attempting to produce new outcomes, or new behaviors, we are most often biased to give up and accept what seems to be the clear evidence for:

• I'm just not reliable at keeping my promises, I did the best I could
• I tried everything I know, nothing worked, it's just not possible
• I'm just not very good at pushing the envelope, it's just too hard to get people to go along with change 
• It seemed a good idea at the time, but circumstances have changed
• I just didn't have the resources, the support, the breaks, ....

We just seem to be designed to settle for reasons and explanations for our failed efforts rather than to persist till we succeed in inventing a breakthrough solution. After all, we tried everything, right? You've got to know when to give up, right?

Then Why Even Attempt To Go For Breakthroughs?

If change is so hard, if trying to produce breakthroughs is so fraught with the risk of failing, why do we keep torturing ourselves by constantly taking on new goals, new initiatives, new projects – always something new, always pushing the envelope?

Because...

Because I just want to

Because it's important

Because that's what I am called to do 

Because...

Because if a I don't I won't like the consequences.

Start With The Why ... Why Is A Breakthrough Important?

Most grand plans fail because we get stuck on what to do, and how to do it before we are clear on the why to do it. 

In the process we forget, or never fully expressed: 

• How does meeting this goal forward my (our) mission and purpose?
• What will a breakthrough make possible, that I can't accomplish with business as usual?
• What doesn't get to happen if I (we) don't produce a breakthrough and meet our goals.

If what we are doing is not important to us, does not forward our purpose and support our values – then as Bob Newhart tells us, Stop It!

So What About The Old Habits And Routines?

How do we change them?

The simple and counter-intuitive answer is DON'T, don't try to change them. Instead:

• Create new practices that support the future you want
• Repeat them over and over and over till they become new habits 
• Create new routines, by following them, old routines will atrophy from lack of usage
• Create new ways of speaking from complaint about what not working, or what you don't like to possibilities for the future you want.

New Beginnings Vs. The Habits of the Past

So, How Are The New Year Resolutions Going?

Every new plan, every intention that things will be different in the future, has to confront the pull of the habits of the past, or the intention is doomed to fail. The habits of the past are what kills countless plans and sincere resolutions. Given habits are automatic and subconscious, most of us do not take into account when we make new resolutions or plans, just how strong that pull is. 

Habits are things that are hard not to do, and are things we do without thinking.

The habits we have developed that let us operate on automatic pilot are great to make getting through the tasks and responsibilities of each day easier and less stressful. Can you imagine how crazy-making it would be to have to think about everything we do every time, all the time? It would be just too inefficient, not to mention exhausting. Automatic behaviors are life savers most of the time. They allow us to react spontaneously with the right learned response for every situation – that's what has us be seen as professionals.

In the performing arts practicing is a part of being a professional. It is what all professionals do – all the time. As some say, practice so you will always remember. Or, as the masters say, practice so you will never forget.

Good News For The Status Quo

What we usually overlook when creating new resolutions and plans is just how deeply embedded old habits are, and the automatic pull they have on almost all of our thoughts and actions. It sounds disrespectful at some level to say this, but most of us, most of the time, are going about our day-to-day lives preprogrammed by the habits of the past. Our routines rule us. That is good news for maintaing the status quo, not so good news for those New Years Resolutions, or new plans.

New Resolutions Require New Practices

All habits were once new routines. Routines which we practiced over and over again till they became automatic and subconscious. When did you last think about all the actions you take in driving your car? It is hard to remember the learning process. A process that was, for most of us, full of frustration and mistakes, even big failures. If you can remember, the same is true for every new skill we have mastered.

Yet somehow we seem to expect that keeping new resolutions, and realizing new plans, can somehow defy the rules of this new skill learning process.

Some must do's to increase success in keeping resolutions – establish new habits:

1. Be specific about what you want to accomplish – what exactly is the intended outcome you have resolved to produce?
2. Be specific about by when you want that outcome to be achieved? This, and #1, is a bold declaration with no fuzziness! 
3. Say what actions would someone need to take to be successful in keeping this resolution, if it was theirs
4. Establish a new routine: take the new actions regularly, say every day, or multiple times a day, till the new action(s) is automatic. [Don't expect a new habit to form in less than say two months of regular repetitions]
5. Be persistent, and patient, new habits are not formed over night [#4]. Giving up too soon is the primary cause of new resolutions failing. We have instant gratification as a learned habit.
6. Be compassionate with lapses and failures. There will be failures, that is part of the new learning process – remember? Recommit, do the practice, keep going.
7. Keep remembering why you wanted to create new habits in the first place. That will keep you going when you become impatient, or when practicing the new behaviors is frustrating and exhausting. 
8. Get support, a friend, a cheerleader, a coach, someone to encourage you, celebrate your successes, and help you through the forgetting and failing moments.

Endings and Beginnings

Endings and Beginnings

For many of us the start of a New Year is a good time of year to reflect, to take stock, maybe make a few changes. The conventional wisdom is to make a few resolutions. You know the deal, think about plans for the new year, things you want to stop doing and things you want to start doing. We, for a while at least, have the comfortable feeling that we have a plan for improvement in place.

I've been there, done that lots of times, and no more! Not just because I know from research, that fewer than 10% of people follow through and actually do what they said they would do. But also, because that mode of personal growth and development does not work: for me, or for people I see struggling with their resolutions.

When I (we if it applies to you) reflect I realize that these "new year resolutions" fade fairly quickly in tussle for priority with the day-to-day routines. When I look back at the resolutions I have made they are usually to "fix something" about me that I didn't like or want – loose weight, exercise more, be more tolerant, etc., etc. Not the most powerful context for change or personal growth and development.

What If I/We Are Just Fine The Way I Am/We Are?

What if we don't need to be "fixed"? What if we just need to nurture the parts of our lives that actually work, that give us joy, satisfaction, accomplishment, the relationships we want, the sense of being in our element, the sense that life is great and so are we? We all have lots of "the good stuff" and we'd see it if we'd just stopped focusing on, "what's wrong that needs to be fixed stuff".

What if, notwithstanding the fact we don't need to be fixed, we do have a sense of an unfolding path to be followed. Joseph Campbell's encouragement to us is to follow your bliss. If we listen, we all have a sense of, things to do, places to go, people to meet, and a life to live that is calling us. I think that is what Campbell meant by follow your bliss, follow your passions, your mission if you like, your real purpose for being here – find it and live it.

So The Question Becomes, What to End And What To Begin?

If we start paying attention to day-to-day events we will get increasingly clear what our path is, what our purpose actually is. Part of paying attention means being more aware what we say yes and no to. We can then ask ourselves what to end, by saying no to and what to begin, by saying yes to; not just once a year, but every day, and even at multiple times during the day.

Endings are opportunities to be complete with the past, so as to be free to move on. Endings give us an opportunity to see habits that don't serve us, that drain us of vitality. And, like calling a time out in sports they give us a chance to see what's working too, so that we can build on them. Endings let us:

• Extract whatever lessons we can learn from the past to seed new beginnings
• Look to see who and what to acknowledge, appreciate and validate – all the evidence that life is good and we have a lot to be grateful for – regardless of our circumstances
• Notice where, about what, and by whom we were hurt, disappointed or felt invalidated or suppressed. Just notice, so we can move on as quickly as possible.
• Calling a time out, or an end to the way things have been going, is too good an opportunity for growth and course corrections to be relegated to a once a year event.

Beginnings Are An Opportunity To Savor The Now And Ponder Possibilities, so as to be present in each moment to create what will be the future. Beginnings let us:

• Pay attention, moment by moment, to what provides joy and satisfaction – so we can be in that mood more often, and be more able to notice when it's fading or missing
• Seek out opportunities to be with people and activities that have us in our element, where we have the feeling of being self expressed. I know being around some people enliven me and have me be more creative, around other...not so much
• Ask and answer, "Who do I want to Be now, in this moment, for the next hour, day...?" Say so, and practice being that, often, and for as long as you can
• Ask and answer, "What do I want to accomplish? So what do I need to be doing?" Do that and watch the outcomes
• Ask and answer, "Who do I want to be around, collaborate with, learn from, laugh with – where I get to be myself unreservedly?" Be with these people.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. 

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 

Begin it now. 

Goethe.