Throw Your New Years Resolution OUT THE WINDOW
I can't tell you how many times as a fitness instructor I have heard:
"I made a new years resolution to lose weight!" or "My new years resolution is to be more productive!"
By doing this you are setting yourself up to fail.
I am making this post because I too have suffered at the hands of the "new years resolution", and have failed because of it too.
From the embers of motivation that you get in the new year, to the flames of productivity at the end of the year, this post will show you how to fan the flames.
Why they don't work...
NYR's for short, are made because we want to take the opportunity that the new year gives our minds. We see it as a time of change, and the whole country sort of does it all together. Giving us a sense of unification.
We want the extrinsic motivation that we get from the crowd.
We almost crave it, and when the communal motivation dies down, then so does our own personal one. I want to help you get beyond that extrinsic, and focus on the intrinsic motivation.
The reason being is that I too know that feeling of not succeeding enough to where you want to be. I am literally only making this post, after procrastinating for a week ironically, all because my system allows me to have wiggle room.
It isn't a matter of changing everything at once, and even though there is a bit of difficulty, it is a matter of doing it over time that is the key. Meaning you don't have to put in a ton of effort, not at first at least.
You can literally start today, and have little time investment.
Man that sounds like a pyramid scheme, and some productivity gurus might have cringed reading that. Thanks for checking out my post peeps!
However in reality it really is only a little bit....
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What to do instead!
A little bit EACH DAY, which is where it gets you. It is a matter of the compound effect, doing a little bit over and over.
Think of productivity or even life like an hourglass, it can go up and compound, or it can go down and cascade.
Set concrete goals, such as I will lose "X" amount of weight by THIS date, no later, but if sooner then great! Have a planned course of action, that you can then divide into more actionable steps along the way. In the #PIOS I would refer to those as Tasks for example.
You can make it into a game, gamification as it is called, and create an RPG of your life!!
By creating systems, my preference is Notion.so, then you can have a reliable platform to build off of. No longer having to remember everything.
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How does this new way work better?
Having a NYR makes it to where you have an "end date" for the new habit you are trying to build. That may be when society ends their all NYR, or perhaps you last longer, but with the consequence of burnout.
In order to avoid those negative factors of quitting or burnout, then you need a different plan.
What is that you may ask?
It isn't that difficult to get started, write down three goals you wish to accomplish over the course of the next six months. Else your goals will expand to fill the whole year, wasting a lot of time.
Parkinson's law is the adage that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
You will need a solid plan of execution. Even if you don't know exactly what to do next, then spend time learning. That is the next step. Plan to read 10 articles, listen to five podcasts, or watch 20 videos. Then you can check off each one, and this is the start of a Modular Degree in the making too!
By going on these deep dives on topics, you'll end up with info you previously couldn't have imagined, then you can start taking steps towards practicing that new goal. It could be weight training, it could be blogging, or whatever your NYR was going to be.
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You don't know what tomorrow will bring, and so the best thing to do is to take action TODAY.
Setting a New System for Goals, Projects, Phases
Take the energy you were going to put towards a New Years Resolution, and start building out a new habit with achievable goals. Check out the page on MESO - Goals, Projects, and Phases to learn more.
You should now know how to fan the flames of productivity, with proper habits, systems, and goals to feed the flame.
By creating a new system in Notion or Monday, or any tool for that matter, then you can create a new platform to build off of for your new goals.
Setting new habits to fill into those systems, perhaps creating a Modegree to organize your learning, and overall improving your life thricefold.
You may be like me and have been doing this a while, or perhaps you are just starting out on your self-development journey. I've come across people who have lived half of their life before truly pursuing development. There is a thought that it is "too late for me", but IT IS NEVER TOO LATE. You could be 99 and decided "I want to learn this new skill".
Read on some of my posts in the self-development realm that will help a lot, and I also will have a series coming up explaining the PolyInnovation Operating System in more detail.