GOKE ILESANMI

Do we actually need New Year’s resolution?

Spread the love

By Goke Ilesanmi

If you want to succeed in life, you must have a plan. Without a good plan, nothing tangible can be achieved. If you aspire to succeed in business for instance, you need to have a well-composed business plan that articulates the direction of your business in a bid to accomplish the most important goal, that is, profitability. But before we can talk about planning for the accomplishment of a resolution, the first thing that must happen is to first have that resolution.

 

Importance

 The word “Resolution” has different meanings or elasticity of interpretations. It means “Decision”, “Solution”, “Promise”, “Determination”, “Clear Picture”, etc. But our major conceptual focus here is the meaning about “Promise”. The resolution that we are concerned about means “a promise to yourself to do something”. Resolution is so critical that we have turned it to a temporal or annual ritual tagged “New Year’s Resolution”, basically made on 1st January.  

   At the beginning of every year, most people will make a resolution that borders on achievement of set goals or even change of unwanted habits. However, having a resolution without being committed to it or knowing how to set it in motion does not guarantee results. It is noteworthy that many people approach the New Year’s resolution in a wrong way, while others do not even bother themselves about it at all. Approaching your annual resolution in the right way is a gateway to living the life of abundance and satisfaction.

 

Defects of over-reliance

  Apart from lack of commitment that tends to make the New Year’s resolution meaningless at times, one of the major disadvantages of this annual ritual is that it makes people easily sleep off as they merely look forward to the end of the year or beginning of another year before they think about taking steps to achieve success or change a bad habit. Even though the end of the year is a period for taking stocks, it is not only at this period that you can resolve to let your life witness dramatic turnaround through a resolution. The implication of this assertion is that there is need for you to start your resolution and its implementation now. 

 

Unnecessary delay

  Effective time management constitutes an important factor in the quest for success or results. As you begin each new day of your life, one thing that you have in common with every other living person is the same amount of time. If you want to achieve success in life, you need to understand that time is money.

   Therefore, waiting till the end of the year or beginning of another year before you decide to transform your life for the better can be compared to the archaic corporate strategy of waiting till the end of the year before giving employees assessment forms so that their managers/supervisors can start measuring their performance for the year under review. The better approach is to assess employees whether weekly or monthly so as to quickly draw their attention to their productivity or otherwise. This weekly or monthly assessment approach will make such employees immediately adjust appropriately. The effect is that the overall organisational productivity and, by implication, profitability will be enhanced.

 

Analogy and example

   Imagine a situation where a football coach waits till the end of a match before telling his or her players about mistakes made and/or correcting them! Such players will find it difficult to win matches. That is why football coaches normally draw the attention of their players to mistakes and make necessary adjustment during the half-time break. We need weekly or monthly resolution to achieve success and/or drop our bad habit fast. We do not need to wait till the end of the year to start. If we adopt the weekly/monthly resolution strategy, we will achieve better results than our annual ritual of often-ineffective New Year’s resolution.

  Three years ago, I advised a heavy smoker in the month of May to stop smoking. To my amazement, he finally agreed with a condition. He said he would write the decision to stop smoking as part of his resolution for the following year. That is, he would still wait for a period of seven months before implementing that change of habit! And it is still possible for somebody to change his or her mind and continue with the bad habit in the course of unnecessary delay occasioned by the belief that the resolution is better slated for year-end or beginning of another year.

 

Belief and commitment

   To be able to easily achieve your resolution, you need belief and commitment. When we believe in something, we definitely will see possibility. Therefore, impossibility is lack of a positive belief. The stronger our belief about our resolution, the closer we get to achieving it. We can weaken or even kill a belief by introducing doubt. Your beliefs are your destiny, once you are committed, success will surely come your way.

  As Peter Hirsch, author of “Success by Design” puts it, “Until one is committed there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.” Commitment is the secret ingredient in every recipe for success, and once one is committed to something, it happens, no matter how long it takes, no matter what else happens, no matter what.

 

Self-motivation

   Self-motivation, which consists of thought and action, is also need to achieve your resolution. This is because the willingness to act on your ideas is at least as important as the ideas themselves. Anybody that wants to be successful in life needs to be a self-starter; give his or her success aspiration all he or she has; and dare him- or herself to act now. The world is full of opportunities beckoning at you every second, minute and day. But the key to making the most of those opportunities is action. This implies that one needs to dream his or her dreams, but motivate him- or herself to put plans into motion.

 

Final note

  It is better for you to decide today to achieve whatever you have resolved to achieve this year. Disappoint procrastination, stop wishing and start willing; stop proposing and start purposing.

  PS: For those making inquiries about our Public Speaking, Business Presentation and Professional Writing Skills programme, please visit the website indicated on this page for details.

Till we meet on Wednesday.

  GOKE ILESANMI, Managing Consultant/CEO of Gokmar Communication Consulting, is an International Platinum Columnist, Certified Public Speaker/MC, Communication Specialist, Motivational Speaker and Career Management Coach. He is also a Book Reviewer, Biographer and Editorial Consultant.

Tel: 08055068773; 08187499425

Email: gokeiles2010@gmail.com

Website: www.gokeilesanmi.com.ng             

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.