Resolutions are a technique that completely depends on your believing in it to work. I’d like to see techniques that don’t lean on faith as much, e.g. pairing off LW users to oversee each other remotely with screen-capture software or somesuch.
Hold on. Faith? The New Year is a traditional time to think about what you’d like to change about your behavior and devise ways of doing it. Do some people believe that there’s some sort of magical quality to New Year’s Resolutions? Because to me it just sounds like regularly-scheduled maintenance for your habits.
No, that doesn’t sound effective at all. Instead, try to think of some way of changing your behavior that has a chance in hell of actually working.
For example, suppose you eat a lot of candy (or drink lots of booze, or whatever) and you want to cut down on that for health reasons. Just trying to eat less candy will probably not work—your willpower can break down a little bit at a time, and before you know it, you’ve failed to make any serious change.
So, here comes the trick: mentally redefine yourself as someone who hardly ever eats candy (or drinks alcohol, or whatever) and put as much effort as necessary into staying away from it entirely for a few weeks. The initial enthusiasm for a new plan can carry you for the first few weeks, and it gets easier after that because the new habits are set in place and you’ve learned how to snack on fruits and nuts, and eat meals that won’t leave you with low blood sugar later.
I’ve found this to be a very effective strategy for shaking off bad habits. No prayer involved.
I do a bit of rough planning of the week on Monday mornings, and I see New
Year’s resolutions as something similar. Just reserving a specific time to
think about the goals for the coming year, identify things that could be
improved and so on. No faith or praying involved.
Resolutions are a technique that completely depends on your believing in it to work. I’d like to see techniques that don’t lean on faith as much, e.g. pairing off LW users to oversee each other remotely with screen-capture software or somesuch.
Hold on. Faith? The New Year is a traditional time to think about what you’d like to change about your behavior and devise ways of doing it. Do some people believe that there’s some sort of magical quality to New Year’s Resolutions? Because to me it just sounds like regularly-scheduled maintenance for your habits.
We’re well aware of our shortcomings long before we make the resolutions to change.
What ways? Say and pray?
No, that doesn’t sound effective at all. Instead, try to think of some way of changing your behavior that has a chance in hell of actually working.
For example, suppose you eat a lot of candy (or drink lots of booze, or whatever) and you want to cut down on that for health reasons. Just trying to eat less candy will probably not work—your willpower can break down a little bit at a time, and before you know it, you’ve failed to make any serious change.
So, here comes the trick: mentally redefine yourself as someone who hardly ever eats candy (or drinks alcohol, or whatever) and put as much effort as necessary into staying away from it entirely for a few weeks. The initial enthusiasm for a new plan can carry you for the first few weeks, and it gets easier after that because the new habits are set in place and you’ve learned how to snack on fruits and nuts, and eat meals that won’t leave you with low blood sugar later.
I’ve found this to be a very effective strategy for shaking off bad habits. No prayer involved.
I do a bit of rough planning of the week on Monday mornings, and I see New Year’s resolutions as something similar. Just reserving a specific time to think about the goals for the coming year, identify things that could be improved and so on. No faith or praying involved.