Abandon New Year’s Resolutions. Adopt New Year’s Commitments.

By now you might have read much about the futility of making New Year’s Resolutions. Each year we get wiser and learn earlier and earlier in January that resolutions don’t work. So, if you made resolutions, how well are you maintaining them now that we are several weeks into the year? How many of the resolutions you made this year are recycled from previous years? Have you begun letting go of some of your resolve?

Chances are good that you have already abandoned your resolutions. I suggest abandoning the word resolution rather than the concept of a new year, a new you and new ways of being. Simply by changing the word you change the ability to realize effective and sustainable change.

Imagine how you might persist in sustaining resolutions if the tradition were to be renamed New Year’s Commitments? People who make commitments create a greater opportunity for success. Commitment carries with it connection. When people make a commitment to an outcome, they follow through with an inner sense of “Yes, I will to do this. Yes, I am doing this.” Their bodies reflect present and future actions. Commitments are created to carry us forward.

Compare commitments to resolutions. Resolution often carries with it an underlying problem or conflict. Resolutions are drafted in response to a deficit. In working to maintain or sustain a resolution, people have an inner sense of “OK, I have to do this. Oh, geez, I really don’t want to do this.” Some other voice is talking rather than their own, which their bodies reflect. Resolutions address issues from the past, they look backward.

Check out the difference.

-Rename your New Year’s Resolutions New Year’s Commitments
-Read aloud first your New Year’s Resolutions and then your New Year’s Commitments
-Notice what happens in your body

With resolutions the head drops, shoulders droop, slowing down effectiveness and sustainability. With commitments the head and shoulders are raised, opening up channels for positive outcomes.

Make this your year to abandon resolutions and adopt commitments.