Every year, millions of people make a vow to change their lives for the better in a tradition that only 20% comes to fruition – Welcome to the good ole cliche, “The New Year’s resolution”.
This is the part of the year where gyms all across the world will see 3-4x more attendees than in December, only by February / March / April, it tapers right back off to the same crew it was a few months ago. Maybe with a couple of new “growth focused” individuals! I know this personally because I used to be one of those. I started referring to the new year as “The Goal Hospice”. The place where goals and good intentions go to slowly and peacefully die! We end the year prior with creating a list (and checking it twice), and kicking off the new year in a sprint, with focus and drive, only with each day passing, and us not focusing to adopt the habits we need to, we slowly regress and fade right back to our old ways and miserable selves.
The problem New Year’s resolutions run into is that they are entirely dependent upon the people who make them to fulfill them. That means ALL the behaviors, habits, circles of friends, routines, the things they’re familiar with, must all change. And all the statistics show that people have struggled to adopt change, even when it’s for the better. This difficult relationship with change is at the heart of New Year’s resolutions of consistent failure – and when we look a little closer, it’s also the secret to making real, long-lasting growth happen.
New Year’s Resolutions versus Growth Mindset
Most people change “just enough” to get away from their problem areas, not enough to permanently fix them. For about 12 years of my life, I was a smoker. To the tune of sometimes 1-1.5 packs per day! I made a resolution to quit at least a 1/2 dozen times. Only to fall right back into the habit within a month or two. It wasn’t until my wife was pregnant with our daughter that I said to myself “this is it”. I wanted it. And I was determined to do it! I can humbly say that I have been “smoke free” for almost 14 years now (all glory to God). Quitting that bad habit because I wanted to manifested itself into other areas of my life. I wanted to start consistently working out, and I did. I wanted to start my own landscape company, and in 2011 I did. When we do what we say we are going to do, it feels good. And when we feel good, we do good. And when we do good, everybody around us wins!
We have heard them all… “I want to stop smoking.” “I want to lose weight.” “I want to drink more water.” “I want to read more books.” Most New Year’s resolutions are focused on behaviors or consequences of problems, rather than underlying causes, and that’s because people would rather change their circumstances to improve their lives when instead they need to change themselves to improve their circumstances. They put in “just enough” effort to distance themselves from their problems without ever trying to go after the root, which can often be found in themselves. Because they don’t try to change the source of their problems, their problems keep coming back at them. That was me smoking. I’d quit buying them, only to just bum one off one of my smoker friends. Thinking this would help, it never did!
I used to set a goal that I wanted to read 10 books that year. Only for it to get to October and I’d maybe be turning the chapter in the middle of the first book, feeling like I was a failure on my goals. It wasn’t until I changed my goal to “I’m going to read for 30 minutes each morning” that I started to find myself finishing chapter after chapter. And the habit of daily reading was adopted. Honestly y’all, it’s hard to lead others when we feel like we are failing ourselves. This is where growth over goals wins every time. I’m not saying that goals are not a good thing, Don’t get me wrong here. But if we don’t change our habits to hit our goals, those goals will never come to light!
For many, the New Year’s celebration is an annual reminder that their lives aren’t the way they’d like them to be. There’s a habit to break or a behavior to shift. But behind their discomfort with the symptom is a deeper, more discomforting reality – “They don’t want to change”. If they truly wanted it, they would be living differently already!
Let’s face the facts here… Change hurts. It is HARD. It kind of sucks to be honest! Bad habits feel good in the moment, which is why it’s hard to see the slow progress that small, daily growth brings. The chocolate chip cookie in the jar looks much more satisfying to us than the apple sitting next to it! Scrolling social media sounds more enjoyable and fruit-filled than picking up a book and reading on leadership development. Sleeping in an extra hour feels much better than getting up and heading to the gym before we kick off the work day.
Change isn’t just hard. It cost us too. It demands our time, our resources, our comfort – and often, more than anything, our desire to want to! What we want now must sit on the helm of what we want to become later. And change keeps costing us until it becomes our new habit!
The growth process begins with the first step. That first step starts the process. Much like installing a new updated patio and fresh landscape begins with ripping out the old and excavating for the new. Or putting in a new swimming pool begins with digging the hole. Once the old is removed, or the hole is dug, you can’t just leave the mess sitting there. If that first price remains unpaid, there is no growth or learning. And what will that cost you in the end? YOU LOSE POTENTIAL AND GAIN REGRETS. In fact, most of our regrets will not be a result of what we did. They will come because of what we could and should have done but didn’t do. The final price we pay is called “missed opportunity”, and that my friends is a heavy cost. And you’ll pay for it mentally, physically, spiritually, relationally, and emotionally day in and day out.
Remember this… New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.
Every top leader I know has learned that nothing new is easy. That difficulty holds a lot of people back from changing. But all of life includes change. Being born was painful. Learning to eat was messy. Learning to walk was difficult and painful. In fact, most of the things you needed to learn in order to live were tough on you. But you didn’t know any better, and you did what you needed to do to learn and grow. Now that you’re grown up, you have a choice! Do you want to avoid the potential pain or endure it and pursue the opportunity that growth can bring you?
Change that brings real results can only happen over time – but it can begin with small, measured steps. If you have something you want to accomplish in the new year, study the process that all real, long-lasting change has in common!
A growth attitude is adopted. When a person’s perspective is challenged and then changed, there is almost ALWAYS an emotional reaction. This is a critical time. If the person’s attitude is good, the person can move to the next phase. If not, they may struggle to get over the hump.
If you’re like I once was, and like most people today, you might find the same few New Year’s resolutions on your annual itinerary year after year – and the same plan to accomplish them too.
But why do we keep trying the exact same thing expecting to get different results? That is the definition of insanity. It doesn’t make sense. What do we expect to change, Our luck? How can our lives get better if we don’t change? As leaders, how can you become better if you don’t expose ourselves to growing situations and growing people?
New behavior is practiced. When we believe something and feel good about it, we start to behave differently. We begin to make different choices, take action, and develop new habits. And this is where the magic happens!
Happy New Year my amigos – Cheers to a year of growth and prosperity!