Resolutions, Part 2: Baby Steps

Right around this time every year, I do my best Harry Houdini impression and disappear for a day. I turn off my cell phone, drive out to someplace where people don't know me, and spend the day thinking about the last year and what I'd like to accomplish in the coming year. Usually I pull out my notebook and jot down thoughts and ideas as they come to me throughout the day. I've been doing this for some time now, and I've found it to be a really helpful exercise. It gets me started on the right foot, ready to enter the new year with a purpose rather than being perpetually scatterbrained.

Last week, I came across some notes I'd made on one of my getaway day trips from a few years ago. At first it was one of those cute nostalgic moments where you laugh at the things you were thinking about in years past, things that your current, more mature self finds silly and trivial by comparison. But as I kept reading, I started to notice the same things popping up on my lists year after year. Then I realized some of those things I had written down three, four, five years ago were still on my list in 2011, and my heart sank. After all these years, I hadn't made any progress. I hadn't changed.

Change. Why is it so hard? Why does it sound so simple when we talk about it, but next to impossible once we try to live it out? The answer to this is complicated, but the short version goes like this: we develop habits based on our behavior, and our central nervous system picks up on this and engrains our habit patterns into our psyche. Once a particular action is done long enough, it integrates into the normal ebb and flow of a person's life. This is why putting aside an old habit can sometimes feel like going off drugs. In actuality, the same chemical reaction is taking place inside the brain because the psychological status quo has been upset. As a result, one cannot learn new habits without simultaneously unlearning old habits. Herein lies the tension that makes change so difficult. It is not only the addition of something new, but the subsequent subtraction of something old that creates that inner struggle we are so familiar with.

The bottom line is that real change, change that takes place in the depths of our being, takes time to cultivate. It's easy to get discouraged when we pull out last year's resolutions and feel like a failure when we didn't accomplish what we hoped to. But change usually requires more time than we think. In an instant-gratification age, this is one area where we'd do well to practice the lost art of patience. It's okay to be in process, to be taking small steps towards a goal rather than giant leaps. The idea is to keep moving forward. Thomas Merton once said that nobody wants to be a beginner, but the fact is we will never be anything but beginners for as long as we live. Perhaps our motto should be "baby steps." Maybe we'll get there someday, but for now we're just toddlers learning to walk, taking baby steps towards becoming the people we were created to be.

Resolutions, Part 1: The Me Monster

It's that time again. That time when everybody pulls out a pencil and paper and decides how they're going to remake their lives over the next 52 weeks. Considering how quickly people tend to bail on their resolutions, I'm amazed we keep doing it year after year. Maybe it's because it's so close to Christmas. Whoever decided to put New Years after Christmas was really smart, because nobody can feel all that badly about themselves when they're still tearing the price tags off their new stuff.

Resolutions themselves are kind of interesting though, don't you think? In truth, our New Years resolutions are actually more like New Life resolutions. They usually represent the changes we wish were present in our lives as ideally conceived by us. "I want to lose ten pounds"; "I want to go to the gym more often"; "I want to quit smoking." We want to cut out the bad stuff and substitute in the good stuff, thereby making us healthier, sexier, and more desirable overall. Almost every resolution made this year will be made with the intention of "building a better me."

I think I understand why we do this. I do it all the time: I'm trying to get you to like me. I want to be told that I am okay, that I am funny and good looking and intelligent, just like you do. So it makes sense to me. I'm just not convinced that these kinds of resolutions are the most helpful kind to make.

This year, I'm suggesting taking resolutions in a different direction. Rather than aim to simply be better versions of ourselves (i.e. thinner, smarter, wittier), what if we resolved to actually do something? Not that going to the gym isn't doing something, but in the end all that amounts to is checking off a box on your to-do list. Not exactly the mountaintop experience you're hoping for, is it? This is why resolutions are so often discarded within the month; nobody has any reason to stick with them. But what if we resolved to really make something happen, something that was bigger than just us? I'm talking about sponsoring a Compassion child, running in a charity race, going green for a year, volunteering at a local homeless shelter, maybe setting aside the money you normally spend at Starbucks and giving it away. See the difference in thinking? The first resolutions we looked at were all about "me." These resolutions still include "me," but without "we" they mean very little. The communal element helps to frame our actions within the larger narrative that's being created.

When we commit to something bigger than just ourselves, we align ourselves with an entire movement and increase the likelihood we'll stick to our goals. And in cases like the charity race example, we usually stand to benefit greatly from the results anyway. It just requires more effort and creativity on our part to think this way than it does to say "I want to lose weight." When it's bigger than just "me," everybody wins.