4 Reasons to Know Your Why Before You Pick New Year’s Resolutions
Why should you know your WHY before you pick New Year’s Resolutions? Did you know that 80% of people who commit to resolutions and goals have given up by the middle of February? That’s a huge number! Who would bet on those odds?
Yet year after year, Americans spend a small fortune in the hopes that THIS year will be different. This year those goals will finally be realized.
That tells me two things:
- A lot of people truly care about changing their lives for the better.
- With such a high failure rate, WE can’t be doing it wrong. The WAY we’re doing it is must be flawed.
When January rolls around each year, we’re told to focus on our resolutions. We pick them because we believe that if we achieve our goals, we’ll feel differently than we do now. We’ll be happier.
But let me ask you a question.
Is everyone who achieves their goals happy?
No! Of course not.
I think the problem is that we don’t always know how to choose the right goals.
When it comes to New Year’s Resolutions, we start with a GOAL in mind.
We should be starting with the vision for the life we want to create, and WHY we want to create it before we ever even think about our goals.
Our WHY is the reason behind our actions. Without getting clear on our WHY on a deep level, there’s no motivation behind the work it takes to achieve our goals.
Without a WHY, Netflix and the couch look SO much better than staying up late to finish the class, eating more vegetables or getting a good night’s rest.
Here are 4 reasons to know your WHY before you pick your new year’s resolutions:
1. You’ll choose better goals.
Let’s look at weight loss as an example because it’s one of the top goals on most people’s New Year’s Resolutions lists.
Gyms and personal trainers see sales skyrocket in January because people want to lose weight.
Most people aim to lose a lot of weight in a short period of time with extreme diet plans and exercise.
I’ve watched friends put everything in life on hold to focus exclusively on losing weight, only to hit their goal then gain it all back and go through a rollercoaster of emotions along the way.
Why would we choose this goal?
It might be to “look better” because our culture idolizes and rewards thinness, right?
It’s more likely because we feel that once we achieve it, we’ll feel differently than we do now.
But if you want to FEEL a certain way, will this goal get you there?
Will the rollercoaster of deprivation, stress, success, then failure make a person feel better?
I don’t think so.
What if, instead of choosing a goal, we focused on our WHY first?
What if, on a deeper level, the WHY wasn’t about losing weight, but improving health to be around for our kids as long as we can?
Or to have enough physical energy to travel with our spouse or our friends?
Or because we feel sore when we wake up and we want to feel better in our bodies?
When we lead with our WHY, we tend to pick better goals. The kind of goals we can, and actually WANT, to stick to.
With a WHY of health, energy and vitality, wouldn’t we ditch the extreme diets and focus on long-term changes that would improve our health. And know it’s working when we feel the way we want to feel?
Not a number on a scale. A FEELING.
When you know your WHY, you pick better goals.
2. You’ll make decisions with intention.
How many times have you found yourself struggling to make a decision?
Go for the promotion or stay in the current role? Keep the job or start the business? Go back to school or put it off for “someday?” Stay or leave the relationship?
When you know your WHY, you know the reason behind your decisions.
When you find yourself at a crossroads and aren’t sure what decision to make, your WHY will help you find the answer. It’s no longer a matter of this vs. that or making the wrong choice, but asking yourself “Does this decision align with my WHY?”
If it doesn’t? Your WHY just made the decision for you.
3. You’ll have a reason to stay motivated.
Why do we lose motivation? Lots of reasons. We pick a resolution and hit the ground running with the best of intentions. Then the kids get sick. We have a special project at work. We get busy and we get tired and let’s be real, the couch and a glass of wine start to look very damn good.
When we know our WHY and have a deep emotional connection to it, it’s easier to get up early to work on our business before our family is up, rather than sleeping in. Our goals feel like a gift rather than a chore because we’ve chosen them for a reason.
Your WHY will help you stay motivated.
4. You’ll know what to prioritize.
If you know your WHY before you pick New Year’s Resolutions, you’ll be able to prioritize your time when life gets busy.
When we focus on too many goals or resolutions at once – like eating healthy, going back to school, dating, and starting a side business, we decrease our chance of success because we’re not laser focused on finishing one thing. We’re all over the place.
Some goals are the right goals, but not the “right now” goals.
Your WHY will help you choose what to work toward first, and when you’ve achieved that milestone, you can work toward something else.
When you know your WHY before you pick your New Year’s Resolutions, you’re setting yourself up for success.
Those were the 4 Reasons to Know Your WHY Before You Pick Your New Year’s Resolutions. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Ready to approach your resolutions and goals in a new, feel-good way? I can help with that! Check out my uh-mazing, affordable, online vision and goal-setting course, The 48-Hour Planning Retreat™.
Check out these other New Year’s Resolution posts:
