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Why resolutions are a total waste of time

· history,podcast,self help,but why,mental health

 

Are you the type of person who never accepted the standardanswer. This is the, but why podcast, where we flipped the script on everythingyou thought you knew, answer the questions you didn't wanna ask and trigger your mind as we seek the truth to the greatest misconception, I'm Michaela, Renee Johnson, and welcome to the podcast. 

Oh my goodness. Let's let's talk for a minute about, well,let's talk for like 23 minutes about resolutions and why they are a total wasteof time. That all being said, stick with me, cuz I promised by the end, I'll share some ideas on what is much more effective and why. So last year I went for my daily hike, nothing new, same old boring hike that I do every day. Um, I usually like busted out after work or whenever really? And I was totally perplexed by the astonishing number of cars and equally irritated. like, why are so many people at the Trailhead in this moment, it's a re relatively obscure uni impressive trail. And it took me almost a quarter mile to realize because it was a new year's day. So let's let me ask you something. Why now? Like why did you decide to set a resolution at the start of a new year? 

Is it because the timing feels apropo like you need afresh start because it's the start of a new year. So it's the best time to, uh,start a new project or set a new resolution. Um, I mean, is it really the best time to add a new it item to your daily list of to-dos some people argue there's no better time than now. And I agree on some levels with that, but there is a better time than now if you are simply doing it because you feel pressure to do it now. Uh, but if it's the latter, it's not the right time. So let's just presume for kicks at new year's day is the best day of the year for you to create a resolute. But before we do, let's dive into what resolutions actually are. New year's resolutions began with the Babylonians about two millennia ago in the month of March, as a promise to repay debts with good deeds and migrated during the Roben empire to promises an intention of spreading kindness, to inherit good fortune to the two faced pagan, God, Janice, hence January over the years, resolutions became rituals and eventually associated as celebration of the new year. 

So here I pose two thoughts. Why make a resolution? Whynot make a goal? And as you create a resolution or a goal, are you clear onwhy? So resolutions inherently mean you are committing to changing something where a goal inherently means you are committed to achieving something. So let's just say you want to exercise more. You want to lose weight. You want to be a better person fine, but why are you trying to lose weight to feel better about yourself or for someone else? Are you trying to fit into a dress for a spring wedding without knowing your, why you set yourself up to fail? This is the most important component to a resolution, Oracle, whatever you wanna call it, you need to know your why without your why you are definitely not going to achieve it. And why? Because you don't know why that's the thing. 

So what happens in our subconscious mind when weunderstand our, why is we begin to make decisions on the daily that drive us toour resolution or our goal? It becomes a subconscious process of choosing moment after moment after moment, day after day after day, whereby if we don't understand our why, and it's just something we toss out to the wind, then we don't make active choices in the moment to move toward our res or our goal. So the other component to this is setting super massive unattainable goals without any idea of how to achieve or obtain them. You are literally tossing empty promises into the wind. You wanna be a better person in 2022. Well, how about stripping it down, making it small and saying, I resolve to pay someone a compliment every week. You wanna start exercising in 2022. How about saying, I'm going to commit to 20 minutes of exertion once a week. Heck that could be a challenging potty break, just saying every year, people make big empty promises that fall apart before Janus even end. So I recommend instead you spend some time reflecting on what didn't work in the months proceeding and offer a promise to yourself to do better in one simple way. 

I think we can all admit that in some way we started offour 20, 20 year with all of the hopes and expectations of a traditional year. Ithink we can also all attest to the fact that even in 2021, we're like who yay. Okay, we're over 2020. Let's get excited about 20, 21. And then we saw similar things unfold. Actually, a lot of us really saw worse than unfold. Some of us had predictions about what was coming and we didn't want to be right, but we were right. And those things came to fruition in 2021 fell apart, even worse than 2020. Now, of course there's always the silver linings. And in some ways I think that a lot of us really had to redefine the kinds of things that happiness, the kinds of things that we wanted to resolve to do better or be better at because of what we were thrust into. 

It was truly a survival fight or fly kind of situation.And those of us that had some past experience, AKA were not just living alukewarm life, were able to tap into resiliency and not just survive, but actually thrive in spite of all that was coming. So here, as we sit at the precipice of 20, 22, do you really want to make a resolution? Do you really want to make a goal? And in thinking about that, how can you really simplify and create a goal or a resolution that is truly within your control? And, and by that, I mean, when we set these super large goals or resolutions, they quickly fall apart because without tangible baby action steps, things become very overwhelming, very large, very daunting. And we just don't end up knowing where to start. So we give it up quickly. It's like saying I wanna write a book. 

Okay, awesome. But you've gotta start with a concept forthat book. And then you've gotta sit down and write chapter one of that book.And as somebody who has written 80,000 word novel twice among many other novels, I can say that all of those projects began with teeny tiny little baby steps. So it's not necessarily terrible to set a big, big goal or a big resolution, but I think you really need to compartment it and strip it down and create smaller, more tangible items monthly or even weekly, if you can. So rather than looking at 2022 as a big fat whole project, look at it as teeny tiny micro moments throughout the year. And here's why that is were important because with the way the world is changing right now, there is so much that is not within our control and that's always been true. 

It's just, well more evident now. So rather than lookingat 22, 22 as a ginormous thing, look at it as mini micro moments of things youwant to experience. And when we look at our goals and our resolutions like experiences, then we don't have the attachment of failure. So in other words, if I say, I want to lose weight that let's say I wanna lose 20 pounds or 15 pounds that is setting me up for failure. If I fall shy in any way, less than 15 pounds, as example, even if I lose five, I'm still gonna feel like I didn't meet my goal rate. Where if you look at as an experience, you're not gonna set yourself up to fail. So if you say instead, I would like to start eating better every week. I would like to incorporate this one thing into my diet, or I'd like to remove this one thing from my diet. 

Now we've created an experience of something which is tosay that we wanna have a different experience with food, our relationship withfood or our relationship with soda or whatever it is, or we wanna have a different relationship with our weight. We could even look at it in a different way and say, you know, if we wanna lose weight, we can incorporate the exercise component. I wanna have an experience of getting my heart rate up every week, once a week for 20 minutes, that's manageable, tangible and doable. Okay. So now that we understand why it's not great to set resolutions and goals and, or it's great to set resolutions and goals at the right time, the time that you want to set them and, or it's also great to set them with at obtainability. Now let's talk about how let's talk about how you can actually achieve your goals this year. So if you're listening to this podcast while you're driving, I recommend you hit pause. 

Okay? So now that we have talked about why people makeresolutions at the beginning of the year, and we've talked about why you shouldreally be clear on whether you're setting a resolution or a goal, and we've talked about why it's not important to make your goals, why it's important not to make your goals too big, why it's important to make your goals more experience oriented. Let's talk about some freaking tangibility, shall we? Ah, it's so easy to get distracted. That's the thing we love to put too many things on our list and then find things that are more fun to do is special. When it comes to goals and resolutions, unless really I got a fire under our, like a real big motivational reason why to get something done, we usually procrastinate it. So it's all about dreaming big, but staying motivated if there's something in your life that you've wanted to do something that you could visualize for yourself, but you aren't sure how to achieve it. 

Perhaps it's like landing a new job or a career or aweight goal or something adventurous like skydiving. You do have what it takes.And now is the time to sink your toes into the floor, dig deep and get things done. This is when we need to take a quick stock though, of what we need to do to get where we're going. So we're gonna do this together. Grab a pen, a great pen that you love. I recommend a quick drying smear resistant. One with vivid colors prove preferably like a 0.3 millimeter in a journal lay flat style out of durable, recycled paper. But Hey, you be, you, you get what you like. And in your journal, I want you to create something called your brain bubble pages. They are messy and messy pages. They aren't even supposed to look pretty and they don't even need to be legible. 

But these are the pages where we start free flowingthoughts and ideas. Then you will have pages that are summaries of the messypages. It's where you narrow down your brain, bubbles into more tangible concepts. Often we have so many dreams and aspirations that is hard to sort through them, to prioritize them and to identify tangible action to achieve them. So let's start by doing the five and five activity, which is intended to help you identify five priorities in your life for the next five years, five experiences that you would like to have cetera to begin label a page in your journal called your five and five brain bubble. Then spend about 20 minutes, brainstorming things that you loved to do as a kid, think riding a bike, dancing arts, and now think about things that you enjoy doing in the current day, perhaps kayaking reading, and then things that you'd like to try in this lifetime. 

Things that you want to experience, perhaps it's flying anairplane or going for a ride in a small airplane, perhaps it's snowboarding orsnowshoeing. If you've never done that. And now I want you to consider things that you want to change in your life, a sour relationship, your eating habits, perhaps you drink too much after you con completed all of that. I want you to spend some time reflecting contemplating on what you wrote. Try to think of memories you've had, or picturing yourself doing these things in the future. Now on a new page, write five and five across the top. Spend some time selecting five things from the list that you'd like to begin doing or experiencing within five years. Now write these five things in large bubbles, use multiple colors and have fun with it. This becomes the foundation of your and resolutions. From here. 

We start to identify all of the things that hold you backfrom achieving these things. You can bullet them, maybe it's money, maybe it'stime, maybe it's kids to raise. Maybe it's a job that you work too hard at. Then you're gonna start to bullet items you can do to move towards these goals today in the here and now goals, resolutions, experiences, whatever we wanna label them, little things that you can do to help you take tiny steps towards this thing. And you're gonna write those down. Now. Now we have a tangible to move forward and experience our experiences, achieve our goals and slay our resolutions. I hope this gets you started on why you shouldn't just make a resolution on new year's day. Why you should come up with goal slash resolution in the form of an experience with small, tangible I items to help you achieve it. 

This is what I really hope you're getting from all of this,because many of the clients that I work with feel like a creativity andachieving dreams comes with an expiration, like a gallon of milk. There are many women and men who begin accomplishing their dreams well into their forties. Look at JK Rowling. As example, renowned author of the Harry Potter series. She didn't begin writing Harry Potter until she was 32 sitting on a delayed train at the time, she was a single mom of three living on government assistance. And at 42, she finished the novels and became one of the, of most successful authors of our time. The summary seems so beautiful, but in reality, JK Rowling spent five years planning the concepts for the novels and endured the loss of her mother while she was writing them. She went on to receive hundreds of rejection letters from publishers before seeing her dreams to fruition, the burden of rejection, not having others agree with or understand the passion behind our dreams can take a heavy toll. 

It's why it's super important. We understand the why thatwe have these goals. As Raleigh reflects on her story in the 2008 interviewwith the Sunday time she shares, we're talking suicidal thoughts. We're not talking on a little bit miserable. Mid twenties, life circumstances were poor. And she really plummeted. She says, when we are working towards our aspirations, we still deal with the day to day reality, reality of our life. That's the thing is you can want to lose weight. You can want to each better, you can want to be a better person, but you're still gonna have to deal with the day to day of things like driving through the Dutch brothers of the Starbucks, getting that yummy treat you love. So in a 2018 interview with insider Rowling road, without a job she'd visited different Edinburg cafes, hunkered down, Tory, her first novel on a typewriter and often brought along her daughter during that period, she lived off government while welfare. So in our modern world, we see the end game without knowing all of the hardships and grit, the people that have to experience to achieve their success. So as you go through life, trying to obtain these resolution slash goals slash experiences that you have now created, just remember, it takes a whole lot of crap to get there. 

Okay. I wanna end the podcast with sharing with you. Someof my goal slash resolution slash experiences for 2022 that I want to have.When I started my pilot's license in 2021, I said it was a journey. It was all about the experience with an end goal of wanting to get my pilot's license. And a lot of things held up that journey in 2021. But because I phrased it like an experience, I'm not let down, I'm not disappointed that I didn't finish it by a certain time. And I am actually set up to take my pilot's exam with the FAA a week or two, after this podcast comes out, which is so exciting. And I may fail and will be okay too, because it will be a part of my life experience. Right? But that is a goal that I have. I also resolve to bring you a, the most awesome epic podcast ever in 2022, as I hit the pause button on BU find happy after 150 episodes, the episodes that you can look forward to that are coming up starting next week. 

I have Isabella from red pill, babe, talking about whyfeminism led to the loss of the mama bear instincts guys. She is a totalfreedom fighter. Absolutely amazing. Then I have Dr. Joy pew, who you've heard on the BU find happy podcast, talking about why technology is proving prophecy and end times is here. Then I've got Frank Schaefer, New York times bestselling author telling you why you should be good at sex with your partner, but not everybody. And then super Betty Jane. Frizzles talking about why, why trash white trash WOS are just as bad as the next. It's a true crime story. How fun is that? Then we were talking about why race is descriptive and not derogatory and the truth behind fascism in Ethiopia and the slave trade. So much stuff guys lined up for you. And if you like this cast, if you want to hear more as we are shattering narratives and all the ways that you thought you should look at things in life, please, please, please, please, please. 

I need you to click, subscribe, share, do everything, toget this podcast out to the world and make it as fun and, and awesome. As faras me being able to bring you more incredible guess as be you find happy was what else? What else? Oh, also I hope to publish a best seller in the fall of 2022. I know that sounds like a super big goal, right? But it's about the writing experience. Super exciting. It's a growth mind book and I'm gonna be growing right along with you guys as I, I write and pen this novel. So exciting. So thank you so much for joining the podcast. If you love it, if you like it, click subscribe, leave me a note, leave me a review. And I look forward to all that's going to unfold in 2022 for all of us signing off McKay and a thanks for joining us on the, but why podcast? We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, click subscribe, share with your friends and we'll see you next week.