New Year’s resolutions

Why do New Year’s resolutions, somewhat famously, fail to work? One of the reasons is that huge shifts in behavior are rarely sustainable. Human behavior is predictable on the macro level. We know that dramatic and immediate behavioral shifts are, by and large, destined to fail. If we want to change our behaviors, get a clear why and then start with baby steps. What’s the one small thing that gets me a little closer to the thing I want to achieve or the person I want to become?

If you want to become a better and more present parent this year, don’t start with telling yourself you’ll come home from work every day, you’ll be fully present until they go to bed, you’ll never get impatient with them, etc. Won’t work more than a few days or weeks at most. Instead, start with one small behavior change for this week. Perhaps it’s putting aside your phone for the first 30 minutes you walk in the door. Perhaps it’s asking each kid the best thing about their day before they go to sleep. Pick one thing, get it done, learn from it, then decide the next thing.

Rinse and repeat 52 weeks a year and you’ll look back and notice very large shifts in behavior. The difference is, it happened iteratively and incrementally. That’s sustainable. Pick a baby step and get after it…50 weeks left in this year. Who do you want to be at the end of it?