The game is well known and will be reissued at the beginning of each year. It’s something you can talk about – cheerfully and carelessly throw in one or the other round what you have planned for the new year. Above all, “get rid of the extra pounds”, “finally give up smoking”, “reduce stress”, have more “time for family and friends”. The list of what positive changes to make at the start of the year is long and can be supplemented as desired. The implementation fails in most cases after the first few weeks of the year, because it is nothing more than the pious desire to finally get rid of the vices, to make life healthier and easier. Not more than lip service.
The beautiful new thing is just not beautiful enough because you can’t get in, in the whirlpool of total enthusiasm for the desired change. Habits are bad, and realizing that the old isn’t bad enough to tackle the new prevents us from actually doing it. In the final analysis, the price we would have to pay for changes also appears to be simply too high. For weight loss, do without pleasure – mh, maybe later – I have no idea. So long as resolutions with ‘oh yes, would be nice’ or ‘actually I would like to’ … we will fail and everything will remain the same.
It was the same for me – for years – and I can tell from my experience what reasons there are for real changes:
1. The famous blow in the neck
2. Steady goals, control and achieve
1 Nobody wants to let it come to 1, but then it happens one day: the herniated disc empties that the plan to play sports was not wrong – as an example. It is my favorite example because I am affected myself. For decades I’ve always had the good excuses everyone knows. When paralysis appeared in my right leg as a result of the herniated disc and I was only able to walk on the walker with crushing pain before the operation, it was clear to me: when that was over, I had time for regular exercise. The price of a broken back was too high for me and there were only reasons why regular exercise had to be easy. That was during the year and it really doesn’t need a turn of the year for this educational insight.
2 I learned from the principle after my divorce. Also a pretty hard way, but in the long run one that does not allow excuses and therefore works reliably. Of course, the well-known smart formula comes to mind, which is an ‘old hat’ for many at this point, but simply applies.
During this time I learned that it is worthwhile to have a clear structure, to formulate and write down the goals. This is a good way to work on it. You can build in stages, enjoy what you have achieved and continue. It’s a bit like playing your own teacher and student at the same time. Set yourself tasks, work through them and then collect a grade. You know that very well yourself, there is no doubt about that. In this way it is much easier for me with actually serious projects and it does not need a beginning of the year, although I do not want to say that it is a bad time.
