What's Next

I waited a few days to post this so those infernal New Year's resolutions could start to feel burdensome.

Why do 99.99% of resolutions fail? Whichever of the myriad reasons you elect the one I feel plays the largest role is "The Dream." We dream of being skinny so we resolve to lose weight. We dream of being successful so we resolve to get a new job. Some new this or new that. What we don't dream is the work it takes to get there.

Resolve instead to plan what needs to be done to achieve the dream, then resolve to follow the plan. Then, if you really plan on succeeding, resolve to go back to the plan even when you've fallen off. Now you have a fighting chance.

To formula to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. A combination of increasing your exercising and decreasing your eating. Your plan can take that a step further by specifying a specific fitness regimen and a diet that increases the amount of veggies and decreasing the amount of fats further enhancing the formula.

All of these things can help. But the best tool I have found for the progress I have made on last year's resolutions was one technique - 'What's Next?' It is a question I ask myself multiple times a day. Those bad habits become your routine. The things done when you're not paying attention. So pay attention. Not necessarily constantly, but periodically during the day, pause and ask "What's Next?". You may find that your behavior so far that day has been atrocious, yet the question gives you a chance to act on the most important of the resolutions listed above, resolve to go back to the plan. No dream disguised as a resolution will come true if there is no resolution to go back to the plan when you've strayed - for being human, stray you will.

If you've already strayed from the actions to achieve your resolution in this first week of the new year, just add the 'Go back to the Plan' resolution and keep going. Wait, did you resolve to Plan? Did you resolve to follow the Plan?

What's Next?