As we cross into 2023, many people will be making New Year’s Resolutions. Most of the time, these resolutions are long term habitual goals. Some will dedicate themselves to going to the gym everyday, while others will try to quit a bad habit, while others may try to go on a diet just to name a few. The overwhelming majority of these folks will not follow through with them. Why will these people fail to hold their promises for the new year? Each person is a different case; however, most of these people will fall off the wagon because their plan will lose excitement and things will get difficult.
In modern society, People are increasingly acting on emotion instead of principle. They will easily quit something because it is not fun, even if it is something that is good for them. My friends, it is important for us to realize that in order to reach our goals and desires, we might need to endure some unpleasant things. As I metaphorically tell my students, “We need to eat our vegetables.” Sure, eating clean may be difficult and not an enjoyable thing, but being an unhealthy person is also unenjoyable. We may need to make sacrifices to make it to class consistently, but in doing so we will become better martial artists. We may not be as enticed with training basic techniques as we may with sparring, but if we know what’s best for us, we will maintain a balanced diet in our training and reap the benefits even if a certain aspect of training is not our favorite. When our emotions get involved, we are simply working on a fad while when we show discipline, we see a positive change in our behavior.
Many times, when we are faced with a personal goal, we also must hold ourselves accountable. Holding yourself accountable takes a lot of discipline. When there is not a deadline being enforced by someone else, it can become easy to slack off and not accomplish your goal. If you find disciplining yourself to be a challenge and feel that it is necessary, it can help to tell someone or a group of people about your goal to help hold you accountable. There is a fine line here. There are some studies that show that if you tell too many people about a goal, then you will do just that: tell people about your goal. You will procrastinate and not accomplish anything. If you tell the correct people though, you will reap the benefits of someone holding you accountable without procrastination.
What is your goal for the new year? If you have the discipline and someone to hold you accountable when things get difficult, you might just accomplish it. .
