New Year’s is a time for resolutions. Making lists of things we hope to do in the New Year. The forgotten ingredient necessary to succeed when boasting about our resolutions is the need for us to change in some way. To do something different than we have done in the past. To start something we have always wanted to do but never have.
Without realizing it, when we make a New Year’s resolution we (unintentionally) wrap a fence around ourselves while thinking that we can easily sail the world (achieving our resolutions) because we always believe and first say “I know how to…..”.
But isn’t knowledge empowering? Yes, it is. It makes our lives easier because by knowing how to do something we don’t have to consciously think as much when doing routine things in our day.
The opposite of this is “I don’t know how to….”. Both logical and expedient as well. We say this often. Every time we say this, we quickly change the channel in our lives and move on. We give up before we try. In fact, we do this so quickly, we don’t even stop between breaths to decide if what we want to do, but think we can’t do because we don’t know how to do, would be valuable or helpful.
Our New Year’s resolutions will require us to make us stop and look at what “I don’t know how to do….” and will need us to invest time and hard work to change this automatic response to a more conscious “I need to learn how to do…..”. (When we state our resolutions we rarely think of what’s involved to achieve them.)
Always concentrating on what we know will, eventually, leave us stuck in the same space down the road. Change, only occurs, when we learn something new. Being able to do something in a different way or trying something completely new.
While “I know how to…” is a strength when we know how to do many things, it is our deepest enemy when wanting to grow and evolve as a person. You will feel this enemy when our lives become stale and our results never change no matter how many times we try. Personally or professionally.
So remember, with every New Year’s resolution, think about what you don’t know how to do but need to now do and focus on what you need to learn now. Get started on doing this first. With time and perseverance, you just might keep a few of the resolutions you make while learning something new and unexpected along the way.