New Year’s Resolutions: Understand Why You Fail

Every year we make the same New Year’s resolutions, and every year, around March, we abandon them. Instead of deluding ourselves in hopes of seeing our behavior change, why don’t we opt for a better approach? Try reflecting on what happened to us (in our environment, internally/externally) that made it difficult for us to reach our goals. Taking myself, for example, every year for the past five years, I have told myself I would write a book. But year after year, I have yet to publish anything, not even a blog post.

Affirmations Don’t Address Your Blockers

I tried the “I am going to become a great writer” affirmation approach to motivate myself to write. However, chanting a daily affirmation didn’t spark my creativity. There was still something blocking me from logging on to my laptop, opening up a word document, and allowing my thoughts to fill the page. And though affirmations are a tactic used to improve your mindset, it doesn’t necessarily change behavior. Instead of trying to manifest an affirmation in an area you are struggling with, try spending time understanding the root of why you do what you do, or in this case, why aren’t you doing what you say you will do. Because as in anything in life, you have to understand the problem before suggesting a solution.

Through deep reflection, journaling, and often speaking to a therapist, I was able to bring awareness to the phenomenon blocking me: my limiting core belief around writing. Like most, I have a deep fear of rejection, mixed with my lack of confidence in my writing due to not understanding the foundations of writing, grammar, and my limited vocabulary. If I keep peeling back the layers of this limiting belief, I can trace many data points in my lifetime, alluding to the fact that I am not a good writer. In fact, I know I am a low-level writer. So how do I motivate myself to work on a skill that is not my strongest?

Understanding the Subconscious

There is an abundance of research on why people procrastinate and self-sabotage when they say they want to do something. And unless you spend time understanding your subconscious, you will continue to repeat your same patterns and give up on things you want to achieve. Our subconscious focuses on ways we failed at something in the past and convinces us why we shouldn’t do that thing again. Though our subconscious only wants to keep us safe, it can limit us and stagnant our growth. We have to understand our negative associations with our goals, or we will continue to put up internal blockers and fail at them.

Our subconscious mind will conclude something is bad for us because it may trigger anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, or any other negative emotion our mind wants to protect us from. Our mind is intelligent and won’t believe an affirmation, “I am going to become a great writer,” because it focuses on all the data that reaffirms why this is an unsafe behavior to participate in. To get the subconscious mind on board with your New Year’s resolution, try backing up your affirmation with data points showing why it is safe to move towards that goal. In my case, these are the data points I shared with myself.

• “At work, your coworkers often ask you to draft a message to our customers because they love the empathy behind your writing.”
• “Every year, your conference committee asks you to draft the welcoming speech because they feel you often have an inspirational message to share with others.”
• “My friends and family often ask me to help them with their cover letters for new job opportunities because they like my storytelling abilities.”

Though my writing is not excellent, I feel confident in the place I am starting, and by including these data points with my affirmation, I convince myself that writing is a safe activity for me. And voilà, a slight shift in my thinking allows me to engage with writing and help me towards my goal.

Overall, the more I add positive data points, the more I can maneuver around my biggest blocker: my negative association with doing what I tell myself I want to do. However, the secret sauce is: change takes time, consistency, and patience. How much time? It can take months to years to consistently show yourself data points that you CAN do something. Then one day, though you may still doubt yourself, you would have strengthened your inner voice to say, “I know there was a time I feared this, but I know I have all this experience proving I can do this.” And that will be the most powerful affirmation of all.

Be Honest With Your Timeline: Change Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Steph Curry didn’t develop his jump shot overnight. Bell Hooks didn’t start off with writing powerhouse books that inspired a generation of readers. Even the Queen, Beyonce, takes hours and months practicing her craft. Set yourself up with realistic expectations, and take your time to learn the basics. We didn’t come out of the womb running, so don’t expect to hit the gym on Day 2 like a fitness trainer. High chances are, if you rush the process, you will be adding more negative associations to that action, and your subconscious mind will figure out a way to shut it down as a way to protect yourself.

Tips To Get Started

1. Make a list of your New Year’s resolutions from 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
2. Do you notice any patterns in the goals you didn’t accomplish?

For any repeating goal(s) you didn’t accomplish:

1. Why did you want to achieve that goal?
2. What stopped you from achieving that goal? List all internal and external reasons.
3. Did you carve out time in your daily schedule to prioritize this goal? If not, why didn’t you prioritize that goal?
4. Be honest. What are some negative or limiting beliefs you may have associated with this goal?
5. For every negative or limiting belief, do you have examples of moments you have seen the opposite take place for yourself?
6. Can you reverse engineer what it would take to achieve this goal?
7. Do you know what you need to have a solid foundation to get started in what you want to achieve? Is there a course or a class you can sign up with to brush up on the basics? Six-pack abs don’t happen overnight. Being a great facilitator or anything else you want to achieve is possible, but only if you put in the work and understand the basics.
8. Do you have a support system to help you get started, to help you stretch your goals as you start making strides, and hold you accountable? Some goals you can achieve alone, but often it takes a village to help grow you, even if that is strengthening a skill.

As for me, this is my first blog post in 2022. Though this post took you, the reader, 6.2 minutes to read, it took me hours and days to write and edit, and then another a week fearing whether or not I should post it.

Creating any skill and developing confidence around that skill will take time. I am committed to the process of becoming a better writer. I intend to share more positive data points of my writing and prove that writing can be a great activity for me to share my thoughts with the world.

If you are still working through your resolutions, I suggest taking the month of January to think through your blockers and how to address them. Then create a plan that will help you develop your foundation. As my college calculus professor would say, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect Practice makes perfect.”

Follow my Medium account where once a month I will write about a topic in social justice, personal development, technology, women, and intersectionality.

Shout out to my friend, Taron Foxworth, for the dope chart/art work for my first blog. Thanks for cheering me on.