On New Year’s Day, it is customary to make life-changing promises to yourself and others. We postpone important achievements until next year, sincerely hoping that in the new year we will take and conquer everyone! Before the New Year, you can quit smoking, lose weight, change jobs, exercise regularly, etc. Remember how often you hear their promises. Why do we expect to have more time, energy, and other resources in the future?
This attitude towards the coming year comes from childhood. The expectation of a gift magically appearing under the tree is engraved in our soul as a program. An enjoyable and desirable program that you will want to run again and again. Therefore, we hope that next year someone will give us extra hours during the day and the strength to joyfully run to the gym after work and refuse ice cream cake without regret!
According to the latest research by neuroscientists, the neurotransmitter dopamine is responsible for the anticipation of pleasure. We press the dopamine button again and again, imagining how easy life will be for us in the new year, childishly forgetting that January 1 is actually no different from other days of the year.
And this somewhat childish attitude towards life plays a dangerous joke on us, causing high expectations from ourselves and others. After all, if you expect life to be easy and joyful, if you are not prepared for objective difficulties, then the emergence of these difficulties will cause anxiety and disappointment.
If you postpone important life actions until daylight, waiting for a calm time to come that will once again contribute to achievements and achievements, then you run the risk of not achieving it. After all, real life shows that something unexpected can happen at any moment. And that “something” can easily interfere with our plans and take away some of our abilities.
It probably seems to you now that this is some kind of non-New Year’s article in which I create fear and despair. On the contrary, I would like to give you, my valued readers, a few suggestions that will increase their productivity and finally achieve what they have postponed until next year.
The best time to change is now. Don’t wait for the best time with ideal conditions. It probably won’t happen. This life. And if a period arises when nothing can distract you from positive changes in life, it better be a pleasant surprise.
Try to accurately evaluate what you have planned as you adapt to changes. In my experience as a psychologist, most people underestimate the difficulty of something. This can be understood from the expressions they are used to and use unconsciously in their conversations. For example, “you just need to quit smoking” or “you just need to diet and exercise regularly” etc. We deceive ourselves by making evaluations such as “fair”, “just” and so on, and we do not allow ourselves to devote the necessary amount of resources to these changes. Separating simple issues from difficult ones is only possible with practice, which is the criterion of truth! If you have been unable to perform some actions for years or, on the contrary, refuse some behavior, it means that it is not an easy task for you personally! And to solve this problem you need to devote more effort and time than in the past.
Plan not only for successes, but also for the challenges you will encounter along the way. In the modern world, for some reason, we are made to believe that any victory can and should be achieved easily, without difficulty! The cult of “easy ways” is sweeping the planet and turning its adherents into childish fools. They naively believe that they can somehow manage to master a new and profitable profession in a month, change years of habitual behavior in a day, and improve family life by reading a few psychological books. And businessmen rub their hands with satisfaction, posting the next marathon or video course on the Internet.
Repeat to yourself often that difficulties are normal. Setbacks and failures aren’t bad… they’re not good either. Just like achievements and victories, it is a natural part of life. And then you will be prepared for the fact that something does not go as you planned. And in such periods you become more alive.
Give yourself time to change. Most people abandon process formulations of their own desires in favor of target ones. This often happens under the influence of motivational coaches who conduct various types of training, and in their everyday life you can often hear the phrase: “You don’t have to try – just take it and do it!” It is important to understand that not everything can be “started and completed”, no matter how much you like it. Some things, and a significant part of them, require long-term effort and effort! And there is nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t matter if you achieve some kind of victory in a few years… or vice versa, if you do not try and do not overcome failures, you will not gain valuable experience, which gives us this opportunity to reach new heights.
At the end of my article, I will quote a statement from Henry Ford, who built a huge business empire from scratch. Nearly a hundred years ago he wrote: “Everyone today wants to be rich, forgetting that the quickest and most direct path to wealth is through hard work.” The definition of the word “labour” was made by Karl Marx. According to him, labor is the application of force towards a target over time.
Of course, set goals for yourself for this year. Work for the benefit of yourself and society. Hooray! Happy birthday!
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.