Before you Give up

            It’s crazy to think that we are wrapping up 2023. At the end of each year everyone ends the year in their own way. Some of us are still in work mode to the last day of the year and even thinking about the first 4 months of 2024 because the days all blend together and life is just a daily grind that sometimes we don’t see a difference from one day to the next or even one year to the next. Some of us are wrapping up projects whether work related, or personal and the end of the year is a notable milestone that we might look forward to or perhaps you aren’t quite ready for it because we need to do just one more thing with this year. Then there are some that are looking forward to the end of the year because the end of a year represents an accomplishment of making it through… making it through a good year, a great year, or a challenging year and though the first day of the New Year doesn’t necessarily mean a switch will flip and everything will be different, that first day does solidify a feeling that it is a new day, a new month, and a new year and the opportunities for something new, something good, or something better to happen in our lives.

             For some people New Year’s Resolutions are life changing and for others New Year’s Resolutions are a really good idea, but they rarely survive the month of January. I know, what a depressing reminder but as I was thinking about resolutions, I wondered why do we give up on our resolutions so quickly? I’m sure many of you could give me lots of different answers and some would simply say, “we are weak or just lazy”. Do you think that’s really the heart of the matter for most people?

  I know, yet another depressing reminder. Great job Katie, asking someone to write a depressing post for your readers as we wrap up this year, maybe don’t ask them to write another post for you. But stick with me just for a few more thoughts, maybe we are lazy and lack the discipline to follow through on our resolutions, that’s a hard truth for some to admit but I wonder if there’s another reason?

Two of my close friends started a business back in 2017. This business started out as a joke and then one of them said, “But what if we actually tried to do it?”. They started researching into business’ that offer similar products, they had to research how to start a business, how to file with the government, taxes, and liability. One guy was the business mind and operations, while the other was engineering, producing the products, and logistics. Obviously, this was a big undertaking and as if all of that wasn’t challenging enough these guys had just graduated from university. They were still figuring out their career paths and they lived in separate states with a 2-hour commute. Finding times to meet before or after their day jobs was a challenge. Along the way, they would share some of their roadblocks with me.

As I mentioned, both guys had day jobs, they didn’t need to do this and there were times they were ready to give up on the idea, even though it meant taking a loss on their investments. But whenever one of them talked about quitting because a new barrier presented itself, the other would ask something simple yet crucially defining. When one was feeling discouraged, and ready to quit he would say, “We’ve given this a really good try, and we learned a lot so it’s not a total loss for us.”

The other would say, “Yeah, you’re right we could definitely quit, it’s been fun and we learned a lot. I’m totally okay if we both want to stop but before we give up, do you want to quit because we’ve hit a barrier that can’t be overcome or have we hit a new barrier that scares us because we don’t know how to do it yet?” The second question was always the same, “If we have hit a point that can’t be overcome, then yes, we shouldn’t waste our time but if we want to quit because we just don’t know how to do it yet, I think we should take the time to see if we can’t learn how to do it and then we can decide if it’s something we can do or if it’s something we can’t do.” Many times they found the new challenge wasn’t as hard as they thought.

Back to My Original Question

So, what does this have to do with New Year’s Resolutions? If you think back to my question, why do you think many people give up on their resolutions? Is it just laziness; or do we just need some accountability?  I think it can be hard to need others but if you have someone that will give you that extra push, that encouragement might just be enough to get up and punch back one more time. Even if it’s scary.  

We might give up on resolutions for unknown reasons and just default to saying we were lazy, or it just got too hard. When really, I think new things can be scary when we don’t know how to do it yet. Think about some of these goals, I haven’t looked for a new job in years, will I be able to learn something new? Buying a house is a lot of work and daunting for most people because they don’t know what they don’t know. Learning to read is a struggle, you don’t know what kind of books or authors you like yet, and to find out is tedious. Everyone is on social media; how do you begin to redirect yourself and find new interests? Dieting and working out, yikes, where to begin? There are hundreds of opinions on both, and you don’t know where to start so why bother. Do we give up on resolutions because we are lazy or overwhelmed? Maybe it’s just that its new territory for you. Or you have no support because you asked the wrong person to push you. Or you don’t want anyone else to know so you can give up and say, “Well, I learned a lot, so it wasn’t a total loss.”.

Some of us might have to be harsh with ourselves and admit we’re just lazy; if that is the case, you might want to ask yourself if admitting laziness is the life you want, or do you want more for yourself? Here are just a couple of suggestions to consider if you have a New Year’s Resolution:

1. Find someone in your life that you consistently interact with at least once a week, if not daily. Tell them you’re working on a resolution and when it gets hard and you want to quit, they need to ask why you want to quit and from there push you to stick with it for at least one more month and if it’s not possible for you, then you can quit but if not, push through it for one more month.
2. Some of you are lone wolves and accountability isn’t as helpful to you. So, if you aren’t going to have that partner you need to have a plan for when you hit those barriers, you need to ask yourself why you want to quit. Take a fresh look at it or learn another way of doing it for just another month. If it’s not possible to do then you can quit but, if you can make it through one more month then you may push past that barrier and start feel encouraged when you see positive results from your efforts.

If you have a resolution maybe this post will give you some ideas to stick with it. I hope this post will challenge you that in anything you do in life you need other people along side you; people that will stick with you and simply say, “I know it’s hard…” or “I get it, but before you give up…”