Quick Links: jump to any section

No time? Listen to the  podcast (7:43 min.) in the background while you file, exercise, ride to work, etc.

Feature Article 

Special Offers

Resource Links

****************

Instead of Resolutions
(click for podcast) (7:43 min.)

Channeling
As we arrive in the new year, the familiar thoughts around that fresh start, clean slate, do things differently this year come up. This is great. We may not need the calendar to push us here, but whatever works is a good thing. The next thing that comes up may not be as helpful: New Year’s Resolutions.

I’m sure you’ve read countless articles on why they are or aren’t a good idea, and why they usually don’t work, but I think I can offer some logic to make it easier to get. It’s kind of like the difference between a tree and a tumbleweed. Roots.

About 10 years ago I wrote about how starting with goals is a recipe for failure, as the goals need to share a common endpoint or you spend your time and energy going in multiple directions. That endpoint needs to come first, so we can come up with goals that will take us there. I call this a Vanishing Point, as in art and design it’s what gives everything proper perspective. You can think of it as a point on the horizon. Without that Vanishing Point you wouldn’t really know if something was big or close, small or far away. Getting to that point is what goals are for.



Goals? Not So Much
New Year’s Resolutions are pretty much goals, so we can see where they share this potential hiccup. Another thing that both share is the mindset we’re using to set them. If we borrow the old Einstein quote about not being able to solve the problem with the same thinking that caused it, our New Year’s Resolutions or goals are likely using the same thinking that we’re attempting to change.

I’ll give you a simple common example: losing weight. The first question is going to be “why?” If it’s under the umbrella of “being healthier,” weight might not be the primary issue. After all, muscle weighs far more than fat, so one can lose weight and become less healthy.

So inadvertently we’ve actually hit upon the longer term organizing mechanism I like to call a Long Term Vision. There’s a familiar question common to many interviews that asks, “where do you see yourself in five years?” That’s actually quite a brilliant question if we take it as far as possible.

Starting with yourself as the embodiment of your highest and dearest Values, expressing them in your Being and your Doing, what does that person’s life look like, smell like, sound like, feel like, etc. Are you sitting on the deck of your vacation cottage by a lake with the smell of apple pie wafting in from the kitchen? What do you need to do to make that a reality? Boom: you have goals.

If you want to be healthier, then certainly what you’re eating matters, but simply “losing weight” is too vague and not necessarily what will make you healthier. A Vision of being healthier will create a bunch of goals, just like with that Vision about the cottage. Now it’s going to include specifics like getting regular exercise and paying more attention to your nutrition. This means your going to learn more about that, and you’re going to start reading labels, and you’re going to adjust accordingly, all in the aim of getting healthier.



Putting a Framework in Place
Sometimes resolutions we’ve made line up with goals, and yet they still don’t happen. This opens the door to a resolution that will help all the others. Figure out what’s prevented you from sticking to a resolution, and make a new resolution. Commit to prioritizing solving that obstacle. Once that’s done and out of the way, you can move forward the way you’d planned.

We can get caught up in side currents when our path is blocked. Nature seeks out the path of least resistance and off we go up another stream. Pretty soon we’ve forgotten about the original plan.

So what are some things we can implement that will facilitate all the other things we want to do? Where’s the “snow-plow?” Well, I’ll borrow a couple bits from “Kind Ambition.”

1. Start time-chunking to stick to a single thing at a time vs. multitasking.

2. Track how long things take for future estimates.

3. Insert buffers between time-chunks (contingencies, and body/brain breaks.) 

4. When you’re in the middle of something, turn off notifications, and don’t answer the phone (unless it’s a real emergency.)

The result of having this framework is it slides us into self discipline (without us aiming for that) and provides achievements. This creates a balanced regulation of dopamine, which is different than the dopamine we get from simple things like "likes" on social media. When we work for it, our nucleus accumbens gives us a balanced level of dopamine as the brain connects to the work. Without working for it, we get too much on the reward side for no work, (cheap dopamine) and the brain compensates on the “pain side of the scale” to regain equilibrium. This is part of why we develop tolerances and need to increase our dosages.

The Integram - the podcast series

Kind Ambition - 3rd Edition
 

****************