Fail-safe New Year resolutions

By Nury Vittachi

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It's January, and that means it's time for you and me to make our New Year resolutions.

                Now I read every newspaper in the world (or at least it feels like it) and I've noticed that practically every community in the world makes the EXACT SAME resolutions.

In fact, I would wager that your Top Five list is more or less identical to mine, which is as follows.
 1) Lose weight;
2) Spend less;
3) Exercise more;
4) Spring-clean; and
5) Find new places to store the corpses of people who upset me.
Am I right?

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Yet despite their predictability, statistics say the vast majority of us fail to keep our resolutions.

So you can imagine how intrigued I was when one of my workmates found a magazine article entitled: "Three Fail-Safe Rules for Keeping Your New Year Resolutions".

                She cut them out and pinned them over her desk.
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Rule Number One was: "Don't be too hard on yourself. Tell yourself IT'S OKAY TO FAIL."

                This she found very comforting. At lunch, she told me: "This is the first day of my diet, so I should really skip dessert, but on the other hand, IT'S OKAY TO FAIL, so I think I'll have two."
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Rule Number Two was: "Reward yourself whenever intermediate goals are met."

                This led to her decision after lunch the following day: "This is the second day of my diet and this time I succeeded in skipping dessert. I will have a triple-scoop of Haagen Dazs on the way back to the office as a reward."
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Rule Three was: "Tell all your family, friends and colleagues that you are losing weight so that they can help and encourage you."

                This led to the following conversation taking place on the third day:

                Me: "Mmm, this chocolate fudge cake is SO yummy."

                Her: "I'm going to have one, too. According to experts, it's OKAY TO FAIL."
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I cannot put my finger on exactly why, but my gut says her "fail-safe" system is going to fail.
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Meanwhile, in a newspaper article on keeping New Year resolutions, I read the following: "The key thing is to give yourself an achievable goal." In which case, my goal will be as follows: "In 2009, I will continue to get fatter, but more slowly, or possibly not."

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The only person I ever met who kept his New Year resolutions had a simple, masculine, achievement-orientated system. It could be characterized as: "The Obnoxious Extremes Method".
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He didn't just cut a few calories. He went on a no-food detox diet and told everyone about it all the time. "I have not eaten anything for five days, six hours and 12 minutes. I have not eaten anything for five days, six hours and 13 minutes." And so on.
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He didn't just do a bit of exercise. He became a total gym junkie. He worked out three hours a day and talked endlessly about how many "reps" he did of each exercise.
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He didn't just save a bit of cash here and there. He became an obsessive miser. He saved most of his income, and probably lived off ketchup sachets and slept in his car.
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His method really worked. But unfortunately it made him obnoxious beyond endurance and he lost all his friends.

If you’re nice to me, I'll tell you where I buried his body.
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Tomorrow: a no-hunger diet secret GUARANTEED to turn overweight folk into average ones

Comments

[Dilys M]

Dear Nury, I am passing this on to you because it worked for me.

I have found inner peace. The way to do this is to finish the things you start.

I looked round my house today and saw the things i had started but not finished, so i finished them - the vodka, the baileys, some red wine, the ice cream and the valium.

You have no idea how peaceful i feel now and i intend to continue to do this no matter how big the bottle, carton etc,.

Happy New Year,
Best Wishes,
Dilys

[Adalina Lo]

What about the ultimate New Year's Resolutions? That is, to *not* have any New Year's Resolutions...

[karuna]

Nury
I will like to share something that really worked for me.
Earlier I was addicted to cigaratte. I had tried many times to quit smoking. Finally, went to a "Smoking Cessation Center" that you see in Hong Kong.
I meet this nurse who after taking some preliminary information, gave me a pre-typed oath, which simply stated "I xxxx(name) herby swear to stop smoking on xx/xx(date)."
She then asked me to fill in my name and the date that I planned to quit smoking. And the date she said need not be the next day or even the next week. She said just put in a date in future that you feel comfortable with. So,I put in a date a month later.
The nurse then asked me to read the oath to someone I love/respect. I took it home and read the oath to my wife, who thought it was some joke. Even I thought it was a joke, since I was smoking everyday of the month after that oath.
But...when I wake up on the date mentioned on the oath, I just stopped smoking and it is now few years since I quit.

[Nury]

Wow, what an interesting story, Karuna. You know, I've had a very similar experience, although not with smoking.

I decided to make some of my writing students write oaths declaring that they would write their books on a set date that they would choose themselves.

The simple act of writing it down and sharing it with someone had a huge effect. You know what hopeless dilettantes writers are? Well, for the first time, a significant number of them actually got their books written.

I know some people don't bother with new year resolutions (such as you, Adalina), but I find them really useful. Every year I became aware of loads of shortcomings or bad habits and I kick them out of my life. Of course a year later, I have discovered loads of new ones which need to be kicked out (and some of the old ones creep back) but generally speaking, I do seem to be achieving some sort of positive progression.

If I continue in this manner, I shall one day be Absolutely Perfect in every way. I reckon it will only take about 700 years.

[Adalina Lo]

I may not bother with New Year's resolutions, but I do believe that each moment is a new beginning or (can be as much as we can make it despite our baggage).

Whether we believe in a God or gods or whatever, an official statement of what one wants to do with one's life is very powerful.

The written form formalizes and energizes the intention.

I declare to myself what I'd like to do with my life or hope to accomplish every single day I wake up (not necessarily mornings!!!). It's like a prayer in a way but it works. I may not accomplish it today, tomorrow, or even in 10 years, but at least it gives my life a certain tone or meaning. I realized that the days I didn't tell myself what I'd like to do were worse than the days I made these declarations.

[Rika]

He he, I think you all are right: Every year I promise 'not' to have them and then I find myself mumbling about: This year I get my legs!

Not that I wouldn't have any - just not nice ones. I know exactly what to do, it's just damn hard. So the progress is a bit like our economy: It goes in waves. But there is an uphill trend, so I will get there in 700 years. And the not failing bit works as well. If I would see my 'not having got the legs during the past 4 years' as a failure - well, I don't think it would be in my list year after year.

And I keep trading things. Like: Well, don't have my legs yet, but wrote a book which was not on the list; however, not published yet, so only counts half... hmmm, oh did the upstairs flooring - that wasn't on the list either and counts for the other half! Yay! Basically a success :o)

BTW: fail-safe non hunger diet... watch documentary on how your comfort food is produced: Chicken ready meals, chocolate,.. best are the shows where they recreate the process in the studio by shredding whole chicken to bits and then adding coke and grease and other nasty things, bake it and then make people eat it. You won't be hungry again for a long, long, ... long time and happily thrive on water, rice and potatoes