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It’s New Year’s Eve. In a few hours, the sun will be setting in the U.S. and tens of millions of people will go forth to eat, drink, and dance in the New Year.

In the morning, many of those people won’t be feeling too well. They’ll have headaches, hangovers and upset stomachs. They’ll look in the mirror and be greeted with a face that is bloated by alcohol and too much rich holiday food. They’ll have wrinkles and bags and their skin will look sallow. And many of these people will have the thought, “Never again! This year is going to be different. I’ll workout every day! I’ll eat salad! I won’t ever drink again! I’ll pay off my credit cards and start saving for my retirement!” And some of these people will actually follow through on these resolutions…

Until Saturday. Then they’ll go out again, put their bar tab on their credit card, and have a little too much rum. Trust me on this. I have been there, done that, and have a pile of t-shirts to prove it.

I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again: New Year’s resolutions are crap. They don’t work. Never have, never will. About the only people they help are health clubs and professional organizers. So why do most of us get caught up this trap? And how do we get out of it?

No One Else Can Tell You What You Want

The biggest problem with most New Year’s resolutions is that they are focused on things that people think they’re supposed to want. What are the top resolutions? I don’t have a source for this, but I’m guessing the top five are things like:

1. Lose weight
2. Exercise more
3. Eat better
4. Get organized
5. Get out of debt

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be healthier, more organized, and better off financially, but did you notice that all of the things on this list have thousands of products with huge advertising budgets to go along with them?! I hate to break it to you, but we’re all being brainwashed. If you want to change something, you better really want it, because there are going to be times when it’s hard.

You Can’t Change Everything At Once

Another huge problem with New Year’s resolutions is that lots of people decide to change about 50 major things all at once. A lot of these things are contradictory to each other, and they all take time. For example, let’s say you want to lose weight, travel more, and pay down your debt. Well, travel usually costs money, which makes it hard to pay down debt. It also makes it more difficult to eat healthy and exercise regularly. Losing weight generally costs a bit of money, which causes issues with paying down the debt.

No matter what you might think, you’re probably a lousy multi-tasker.

Know What Outcome You Want

So, when you lose 50 pounds and finish the Boston Marathon, what will it get you? Chances are you don’t have a clue. Most people who make New Year’s resolutions don’t really know what they want to accomplish from them. They imagine themselves sweating it out at the gym, or staring at their shiny clean office and have no idea what they’re going to do next. What is all of the pain and suffering going to get you? Is it worth it? Will you even care anymore when if you get there?

If you have no plan for your newfound skills, organization, or superhuman endurance, you’re probably not going to succeed. “Because it’s there” may be good enough for crazy mountain climbers, but it doesn’t work well for the rest of us.

How To Make a Decent New Year’s Resolution

Okay, so I’ve just torn down everything you know about making a New Year’s resolution. Yay!! Now, I get to build you back up again in my own image (bwahaha!!!). Seriously, there are real ways to make positive changes in your life. You probably even know how to do it, but I’m happy to remind you.

The formula for successful change:

1. Have a real reason for wanting to change. Chances are, there’s something in your life that is making you unhappy. If you change it you will probably be happier. Think through all of the things that you do, have, and are and pick one that really sucks. Figure out what is so terrible about it. Be really specific. When you’re done you should have a statement like, “I hate being in debt and broke all the time. It hurts me way down in my soul to know that I can’t give my kids everything I want them to have. It tears me up inside that I can’t build up a healthy retirement account and if I keep going this way I’ll have to rely on the kindness of strangers and eat cat food when I’m too old and sick to work.”
2. Pick one thing that you can do to make it better right now. If you’re going to start working on this, you better start right away before you get distracted by something shiny (or by Twitter). Find one thing that will take 5-30 minutes and do it right now – even before you finish reading this post. If you’re broke, decide to spend the smallest amount of money possible tonight. Set aside that amount of cash and only carry that tonight. Don’t even bring your credit card. When you run out of money, go home even if it’s before midnight. Or sign up for automatic billpay, or put something for sale on eBay. It really doesn’t matter. Just do something.
3. Decide what you’re going to do to make it better for the next 30 days. Be realistic here. You can make good progress by working on something for 10-30 minutes a day. Choose things you can do consistently so that you can get started building a habit. Keeping with our example of our broke friend, I bet most of us could find 1 item to sell everyday and get it listed on Craigslist or eBay. After 30 days of that, this person will have some serious extra cash to put toward debt.
4. Adjust your aim weekly. No plan is perfect from the start, so take a few minutes each week to decide what is working for you and what needs some adjustment. If the broke person runs out of stuff worth selling after day 20, no big deal. There are about 1,000 things he or she can do after that to improve the situation. They key is to keep refining your actions, get more effective, and get closer to what you want.
5. If you relapse, look back at your progress and keep going. Everyone screws up when trying to change something important. If it were easy to change, everyone’s life would be perfect all the time. The good news is that you’ve made some progress and it’s pretty unlikely that any relapse is going to undo all of your progress. Even if our broke friend had a huge disaster and piled up a bunch of bills, he or she has learned a lot of skills that will help with the rebounding process. Look at what you’ve learned, assess where you are right now, and figure out how you’re going to keep moving forward. You might have taken a step back, but before that you had two steps forward. Appreciate and enjoy that.

Make a Resolution to Keep Up With This Site

Okay, I’m going to be really honest. This article is just a teaser post for a lot of really good stuff that I have in the pipes. I basically just did a really short summary of my soon-to-be eBook Changes That Stick: How to Create Lasting Changes. My resolution for 2009 is to really amp up the value on this blog and I’m going to get off to a running start for the next couple of weeks. If you want to make some changes in your life, you need to follow along. Here’s what you can do right now to get started:

• Subscribe to the blog. If you’re not signed up with RSS or through your email do that so you don’t miss a thing.
• Follow me on Twitter.  I’m using Twitter as a true microblogging platform and will be tweeting tips to keep you on track with your changes.

So go ahead and go out tonight. Get your dance on, have a good time, and then be ready to get to work. 2009 is going to be awesome!!

Photo by jekemp

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