An Opportunity for Change
It’s easy to think of January 1st as a big thing.
As a collective, we have time off work, space to spend with loved ones (or maybe-they’ll-become loved ones), dinners and parties to attend and most of our regular life seems to come to a pause around it.
There are many conversations about intentions and plans and our algorithm begins to highlight holidays we should go on, things we should achieve or services offering the ‘way to hit all your 2025 goals’.
Though having a key marker, like a date, to measure the years and shape our plans around is important, when it comes to enacting change or adapting behaviour it is only pertinent if we believe it is.
Every day is, in fact, a new year. Each day is 365 days since the earth last rotated the sun to that position, we just choose this one to celebrate and, for many of us, attempt changes.
There is no issue with this, ceremony is important and increasingly devoid from our lives.
However, it does beg the question - why wait until this moment for change? In my experience, it is actually a very difficult time to shift behaviours. Often we have more social engagements (leading to less healthy decisions), our routines are disrupted and things are generally less stable than regular life; none of which are fertile ground to sow seeds of evolution.
Personally, I think the time and space we have to reflect on our lives over this period, coupled with the socially accepted conversations (do you have any resolutions etc) are largely responsible. We may begin a new endeavour or kick and old habit - the most common changes we make - and, when we lose momentum as we inevitably tend to, we say ‘next year I will…’ and wait for a random day we have decided to denote meaning to support our choice, opposed to realising we have the power to do it ourselves.
Interestingly, creating intentions and resolutions actually delivers a neuro-chemical reward. It produces dopamine and increases the activity within our serotonin receptors, whereas accomplishing a goal doesn’t produce anywhere close to the same feel-good chemicals.
This means it is much easier and biologically rewarding for us to create a goal than to follow it through. To me, this is both relevant and interesting.
If we are socially and biologically programmed to conceive of change opposed to follow it through - how do we make sure we stick to our resolutions?
Firstly, and most importantly, we need a vision for our lives. It is important to take the time to consider who we want to be, and why, in order to be engaged enough with our plans to see them through. Once we make an emotional connection with this future vision, we are far more likely to stay the course with our planned changes.
Secondly, it needs to feel like a fulfilling of potential. It is so easy to be swept up in the goals or things other people are achieving, yet if we choose something that is making us more like someone else other than more like ourselves, our motivation will falter.
Lastly, we need to recognise how each moment is a new moment, each day the day to change. When it is the change in years, birthdays or some other major milestone, we can gear ourselves up mentally and emotionally but then lose steam quickly. When, instead, we recognise each moment - or at least each day - as entirely new and brimming with possibilities, I have found we have more capacity to not only act but follow through on our plans.
This is work I have done with dozens of people over the last years, founded in my learnings of philosophy and psychology. If it is something you want to bring into your life this year, please respond and we can organise a time to chat about it.
Remember - you are the one you have been waiting for and the power to change rests solely in your hands. Other people can guide, poke or encourage you but every action you take will only be thanks to your own desire and volition.
The most important step one can take is only ever the next one; you don’t need to wait for some special day or date to do so. The next moment is all any of us ever need.
