Top 5 Reasons The New Year’s Resolutions Fail

Posted on January 7, 2008

Like clockwork New Year’s comes and everyone fantasizes about some habit they want to kick or a good behavior they want to start. I was on the resolution train for years, only to realize I was lucky to make it to February. I am here to offer some reasons why New Year’s resolutions aren’t lasting recipe for change.

Resolutions are so common place that everyone feels like they need to do them. They get created out of habit rather than conviction, motivation, or passion. Even if the desire is there, the planning and preparation are often half hearted or non existent. Writing them down, planning, preparing, reading, and learning are crucial to creating lasting life changes. Half the time we can barely recall what the previous year’s resolution.
Resolutions are often derive from negative emotions. Changes that are built around positive results and motivation, rather then ‘stopping’ something have a much greater chance to be successful
No accountability. Everyone knows resolutions fail, but we try anyway without changing the formula. We rarely involve family, friends, or support groups and no one cares(even ourselves) when the resolution is abandoned by mid January.
Resolutions are overwhelming. Our unhappiness with the past year or our zeal for the New Year causes us to bite off way more than we can chew. The huge weight we create for ourselves serves only to drag us into hopelessness. Smaller specific goals are more likely to be achieved. Even the divide and conquer method can be a great help.
Resolutions are too broad/general. Vagueness usually leaves room for use to say ‘yeah, sure I did X in 2007’. ‘Spend less money in 2008’ is a admirable goal, but it is unlikely to have a significant impact on your life without quantifying how much you spend now, having a specific target goal, and measuring your progress.

That has been my experience with resolutions, hopefully yours is different. Is it?

What’s the alternative? The real goal is to create a life attitude and structure that constantly embraces and promotes self growth, rather than one that skates along the whole year until some arbitrary day where culture says you should try to change something about yourself. Is New Year’s a great time for reflection? Absolutely, but it should be just one many reflection and change points throughout the year, not a day that you need to make up for all the lost time of the previous year. Another alternative is 30 day experiments with proper preparation and motivation. They can be excellent ways to create positive self growth.

» Filed Under Accountability, Experiments, Habits, Motivation

It’s Hard Without Habits - July Cash Experiment Update

Posted on July 11, 2007

10 days into the July Cash Experiment and we have seen our share of speed bumps. First was forgetting that Sunday the 1st was actually July. I hadn’t withdrawn any cash to start the month. My preparation wasn’t there and I resorted to the debit card to avoid a 2.00 ATM fee at Target. Probably not the best choice for the experiment’s sake, since dealing with fees is something that must be balanced when using cash.

The next speed bump was with paying tolls. I have EZ-Pass, an electronic toll collection system, so I haven’t paid cash in years. The ez-pass allows no waiting in lines or even stopping for that matter. I love my ez-pass, but the scary part is that I forget that money is exchanged when going through tolls. $30-$35 a month that is so automated I don’t even notice it anymore. With cash there would be no way to miss shelling out $3.00 every time I go into Pennsylvania.

One trip to the grocery store, I realized that I only had about $90 in cash. The bill came to $92, luckily I had my wife’s wallet with me to scrounge up two more dollars. The really interesting part is that I usually spend $120+ each week. $92 vs $120+ and amazingly we don’t feel like we are missing anything.

The last speed bump was the camping reservation that was held with a debit card, and then automatically debited when we checked in. An example of just how ingrained plastic is into our consumption.

The biggest problem has been that lack of habits surrounding spending cash. Not only do we have to fight our ingrained plastic spending habits, but we also do not have any cash habits. Things like a weekly trip to the bank/ATM and budgeted spending amounts (so i can make sure I have enough cash) will make spending cash much easier. Forming habits in your finances is a great tool for success. Habits like paying yourself first, automatic savings, and regular budgeting go a long way to making valuable tasks simple and reoccurring. We all have habits it is a matter of whether they are productive or not.

I haven’t reviewed any numbers yet, since I don’t want to skew the experiment. My gut tells me that we will save some money. Even if we don’t, the adventure from our comfort zone will provide some nice growth and perspective.

I refer you to Zen Habits for a few tips on building habits. Zen Habits is an amazing blog about forming positive habits in a variety of areas. Here are a small sample : how to stop a bad habit, 10 finance habits, and habits and goals.