It’s New Year’s Day.

Today, we wake up armed with a handful of fresh resolutions and a little resolve borrowed from the promise of a new year.

We head to the gym, take to the kitchen, curl up with a book and hunker down in front of a keyboard. We swear off the junk food, power down the TV and dream of a better, happier, healthier, more productive life. Waiting for that all important day when we walk out of the room as people whisper behind us:

Do you think she just woke up one morning and said, ‘I think I’ll go to law school today’?

That day however, is not today. Because achieving our resolutions are never quite as easy as waking up and making a grand proclamation. A better life requires life long changes. It’s about showing up to each battle, win, lose or draw, while not losing site of the overall war. Jeff Goins helps us to understand why most resolutions fail:

A resolution is something you make. Resolve is something you have. Call it semantics, but this is important. A lot of people will make resolutions this new year and immediately break them. Why? Because they’re not really resolving to do anything. They’re just wishing.

So where do we find resolve? Or better yet, how do you build resolve? Lifehacker recommends a scaffolding approach to structure your goals that involve the following steps:

Choose a concrete goal
Determine the next action
Make your resolution open ended
Seek out a support network
Be realistic and kind

At the end of the day, we all have 24 hours. Changing your life requires that you to rethink how to prioritize the time that we are all given. 

Source

• “Why You Shouldn’t Bother with Writing Resolutions this New Year” - Jeff Goins | Jeff Goins Writer
• “Scaffold Your New Year’s Resolutions for Lasting Change” - Jason Fitzpatrick | Lifehacker