New Year, New Me

This phrase is so cliché, but I’m sure for a few people it holds some truth! This year, I decided not to follow the crowd and not make any new year resolutions! Let’s face it, how many times have you said you were going to lose weight, start saving, pay off debt, party less, stay out of drama, travel more, or be a better person in the new year, but by Memorial Day you revert back to “old habits, old me”? I get it, a new year almost seems like a restart button for all of your shortcomings, but is it really that simple? Why can’t you seem to get your life on the right path? It’s because “old habits die hard”. It takes more than just talking about what changes you’re going to make, you have to actually put time and work in daily.

I know countless times I’ve also been guilty of saying, “next year I’m going to do better”, but why does it take waiting for another year to come to want to make changes that you can make right now? One of my worst habits is procrastinating! I know I need to get things done, but I will make an excuse or put it off until I have no choice, but to do it. I wanted to break my old, bad habits so I decided to look at different articles to help with this issue. I ran across one recently called “Why Bad Habits Are So Easy to Make and So Hard to Break” and it talked about how our brains work on a “trigger and reward basis”. It talked about how easy it is to get into a routine and how hard it is to fight back when the undesired behavior occurs. Less than half of the time, our mind is occupied with other things while actions are completed unconsciously and to a certain degree, this is desirable and enables us to complete repetitive tasks without expending unnecessary concentration.

Once we decide to get rid of the old habits we’ve already made the first step which is to first be conscious of the problem. In order to rid ourselves of bad habits we must create a strategy on how to eliminate the issue, after that we must execute our plan with any and all available resources. Start writing down goals, find an accountability partner, give yourself deadlines, find a mentor, seek counseling and do whatever is necessary to help you achieve your success! In the words of John C. Maxwell, “you’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”