2. The NO Year’s Resolution

and extraordinary positivity. By sharing my learning stories and conversations with guests, I want to help you and me lead a more intentional life focused on being the best as possible, make sure to subscribe today, follow along and start your own positivity quest. Well, it's January 2021. And what else we'll be talking about in today's episode, except New

Year's resolutions, right? So we've made a change from 2020, which is probably the hardest year in recent memory for many, many folks on for numbers of reasons. It is now magically 2021. And we expect this kind of transition to a new year. And New Year's resolutions are part of that. But today, we're also going to talk about New Year's resolutions, learn a little bit about the history of New Year's resolutions, as well as why they don't work, and also

how you can make them stick. So many of you are probably like me, you have no idea where new year's resolution started. So I decided to do a little bit of research is the first time I've ever really considered like what does it mean to make a promise to yourself in a new year and how did it get started. So the history behind New Year's resolution started off a little bit about 4000 years ago had no idea it came out of ancient Babylonian time, the Babylonians were the first people to kind of

make new year's resolutions. And it all had to do with a celebration of a festival known as a key to which is basically crowning or affirming, reaffirming their loyalty to whoever the king was at that time. And of course, during that process, big belief in Gods and powers that be controlling the universe, and so they thought it was a good time to pay their debts return any objects they

had borrowed. And they also believe that if they kept their word, then the gods would bestow favor upon them in the coming year. And if they didn't, they would fall out of favor with the gods. And of course, that's no place that any Babylonian wanted to be at that point in time in their lives. They always wanted to be favored by the gods. Lots of great history around that thought process, which would probably make another great podcast at some point in time, we're talking about positivity.

But that's the history. That's where it started New Year's resolutions 4000 years ago, brought to us by the Babylonians. Oddly enough, though they didn't come in January, right. It happened around March, I think was when the crops were planted. So they were looking good favor from the gods to have a good crop, and then a great harvest throughout the summer and into the fall. So they had enough food staples to carry them through the winter. So you fast forward just a

little bit. And Julius Caesar, who was then at the time, Emperor of Rome, started to tinker with the calendar and decided that you know what, January 1, is going to be the start of the new year. Why January, because the new year was named for Janice, Janice January, who was the two faced God who basically inhibited doorways and arches, and had great significance for the Romans. They believe that Janice was to face God, one that looked into the previous year, as well

as ahead into the future. And as was the custom in those times, you pay favor trinkets, sacrifices to a deity. And Jan has happened to be the one that you pay those tributes to, for promises of good conduct in the year ahead again, to win favor with Janice, you fast forward a little bit more into the future around the 1700s. You have john Wesley, who was an English clergyman who founded Methodism. And now he has the idea of developing the covenant renewal

service. Now what is that so it was most commonly held on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day was a religious ceremony, lots of celebration, but also had a lot to do with thinking through and praying and making resolutions for the new year. So we've got all of this great kind of DD God religious backdrop to New Year's resolutions. Today, people still make them. Oddly enough, only about 45% of Americans say that they make new year's resolutions, which is certainly down from what it has been in

the past. The trouble is only about each percent of them keep those resolutions or are successful in reaching their goals of the resolutions. So why? Well, there are a lot of things that have to do with behavior behavior change those types of concepts when you're talking about resolutions and changing habits, but why don't we make them? Like, why don't we say, hey, we've got to do this.

It's obviously a tradition tradition that goes back 4000 years of practice here, where people get up on New Year's Day and say, Hey, this is what I'm going to do in the new year, I look back at the past year, and I've done x. And in the new year, I want to do why. So I've been smoking, I want to quit smoking, not been eating healthy, I'm going to start eating healthy, I haven't been working out, I'm gonna start

going to the gym. For those of us who have gone to the gym in the past and been regular folks at the gym, you know, that you can't go home equipment in January, it's just, it's almost not even worth going. Because the regulars get bumped out by all the people who've made new year's resolutions. But we also know is that by the end of January, beginning of February, those same people who had that New Year's resolution of going to the gym are now gone, you don't see them, the new faces

are gone. And the regular faces that you've seen throughout the year remain. So how many times have you gone out and said, Alright, January 1, here's what I'm gonna do this year, this is what I'm gonna accomplish. And you set that goal. By 30 days later, it's gone, it's disappeared, you don't have the capability to continue to push through. Why is that? Well, the truth is, most people don't accomplish those new year's

resolutions or those goals. It's because at a very deep level, they don't understand how they operate, and why they operate, literally like what makes them tick. If you can't uncover for yourself, the specific self sabotaging negative thought process or behaviors that limit your progress, if you can't name them, you can't understand them, then of course, you're not going to achieve the success when you make a resolution at the start of the year. And I love that there's research all about it.

And I love it because it fits right into what this podcast is all about. It's about positivity, ordinary people extraordinary positivity. And if you don't get to a point in your life, where you kind of understand what your your mindsets, are, you have a fixed mindset, or do you have a growth mindset? What are your values? What are you your beliefs? What kind of habits have you

established for yourself? And then writing down on paper, like, what are your greatest fears in life, if you don't understand all of that, together, you're really gonna have a hard time making behavioral changes in your life. So as I was doing some research for today's show, I came across something interesting that Einstein once said, he said, we cannot solve a problem on the level of consciousness that

created it. And what Einstein meant by that is that unless you take the time to dive deep, to have conversations to go through a process whereby you understand the at a very root level, what it is, that causes those negative thoughts, those tendencies, those beliefs, those values you have, you can't begin the process of overcoming them.

So one of the best things that I ever did, and I just did a recently came out of some of the work that I've been doing, as part of my coaching practice is I went through the process of doing a finding my why this comes out of Simon cynics work, start with why and then find your why. So if you've ever read his book, find your why you'll

know what that process is. But long story short, what you do is you find somebody, a partner, someone that you can have a conversation with and really commit to Him, who has a little bit of knowledge about coaching and also has the capability to ask really good questions, not, not yes or no questions, but open ended questions when you go through this process. And what you do is you think through and come up with 10 stories of your life 10 stories of your life, then you narrow those 10 stories

down to about five stories. And then you share them with this partner. And as you're sharing the partner will go through and take a look and ask you questions and dive a little bit deeper. And the process is supposed to find themes trends. It's it's better to do it in person so you can see facial expression and body movement. And ultimately what we'll do is you have a conversation around the topics and themes in your life based upon your stories.

And it's pretty powerful exercise to go through if you haven't done it, I suggest you do it. But it really sets the table for understanding kind of who you are as a person, what you stand for. And Simon Sinek, in his work says, You know what, you only have one purposeful, why in your life doesn't change, it's who you are, it's built, by the time that you're a teenager, when you're younger, you just don't have the words to explain him. So if you go through this process, it really tells a lot

about who you are. And then you can start to unpack more about yourself, which then you can use to move forward with making changes in your life. So why is all of this important? Well, if you look at any sort of steps or processes for why New Year's resolutions fail regularly, we've seen that only 8% of Americans actually reached those goals, or On the flip side, 80% of those people don't reach their goals, it has a lot to do with your consciousness. So that

needs to change. Like your conscious ness level needs to change before your behavior can change. I'm going to say that, again, your consciousness needs to change before your behavior can change. And this all comes out of an article that Forbes did back in 2019, before the 2020 year. And if you haven't had a chance to read, I'll put

it in the show notes. It's a really good article, kind of top level gives you some some concepts on what you can work on in order to do behavior change, if you're going to do a new year's resolution, what's number two on that article. Number two is you don't have an accountability structure to help you sustain change. If you've done any sort of coaching before, work with anybody who's kind of worked through topics with you, you know, you need to have an accountability partner.

Why do you need to have an accountability partner? Well think of it this way, if you've ever gone bowling in your life, and you've done that as a child, or you take children to the bowling alley, and he asked to put the bumpers up. That is the concept of an accountability partner. Right? When we bow with bumpers, if we start to veer off track a little bit, the bumpers guide us back to the metal down the lane that we're supposed to be on heading towards the right

path to achieve a goal. What happens if we're bowling and we take the bumpers down? Well, that's like not having an accountability partner. If we start to get off of lane, down the path, we end up in the gutter, we don't hit our mark, we miss our Mark 100% of the time when we end up off path in the gutter heading in the wrong direction. So what is it that an accountability partner will do for you? Well, a, they're gonna be a big supporter for you. They've got to believe in you.

100% is somebody you have that you trust in your life to keep you on the right path. And they believe in your big goal, whatever it may be. So lots of us set new year's resolutions, but we don't get ourselves an accountability partner to go along with that new year's resolution. They also keep you on track, right? It's going

through a big change. And if you try to make any sort of big changes in your life in a vacuum, where you have no one supporting you, you're not talking about it with anybody. You're not going through the process with anybody, you're going to fail. Now it takes a very unique person to be able to make a really big goal and do it

alone. Finally, in that Forbes article, the third reason that people don't achieve success within news resolutions, is they're actually scared of and so I thought was interesting, completely resistant to achieving the big goal. In short, you won't let yourself do it. Which is really strange. Because on the on the surface on the conscious level, you're like, yeah, I'm gonna do this, I got this. But guess what, on the subconscious level, you got a lot of things working against

you. And what are the underlying feelings there that happen? Well, one, you feel fundamentally flawed, too. You have this concept of disloyal, disloyalty and abandonment in your life. Three, you have a belief that more success will bring a bigger burden on your life for that you have a fear of outshining others. Now I know that's a lot to take in and a lot to process. So I'm gonna, like I said, I'm gonna put the show in the show notes, a link to this article, so you can read

it for yourself. But as I was going through it, I was like, wow, that's deep, man. It takes you really deep like most of us don't reach our goals, even if we want to, because something subconsciously is preventing us from doing so. So if we've got this subconscious or unconscious, blockage to kind of moving through and getting over the hurdle to make any sort of substantial changes in our lives, that where am I going to Turn for some advice on how to

be better at that. So of course, I'm gonna go to the American Psychological Association and see what they have to say about making changes. Step number one, got to start small, not a grandiose, I'm gonna change my entire life, everything about it, no, start small. Choose one, one tiny thing, and you're like saying, Okay, I'm gonna start going to the gym. Awesome, great, fantastic. Don't save yourself, you're gonna go seven days a week. Don't make that

commitment. seven days a week, as soon as you miss one day, you're going to beat yourself up about it, start small. Maybe say, Hey, I'm gonna go two days a week, maybe three days a week, instead of going for the big out of the gate, New Year's resolution seven days a week always going to be at the gym at 530. That's a big challenge. It's big. Trust me, I've done it before. I've said that to myself. And I've stuck to it. But only for about six months. Right? I did it for I did seven

days a week, for six months. And after a while, you don't take the time to think through what that process looks like. You're killing yourself, you're not taking time for self care, you're not thinking about what else your body needs. So again, start small, you can build up fuel, say, Hey, I'm going to start two days a week, I'm going to build up to get to three days, then four days, then five

days. And then stop, take a look back and see if you're thinking about maybe, you know, eating healthier, you know, skip the fad diets. Don't say hey, I'm gonna do keto, or I'm gonna do. And I know I'm gonna get a lot of backlash for this saying, skip the fad diets, especially when I mentioned the popular ones, but Atkins or carb free or paleo, and trust me, I've done a lot of them, I've done a lot of them. But if you don't make the small changes, first, they're

not gonna stick. So don't just jump onto the bandwagon of one of those fad diets. So you know what, I'm gonna start small. So rather than, you know, having dessert, every night, have a cookie or something sweet. Change it up, do something that's like yogurt, or a piece of fruit or something different. Again, wholesale changes are hard for your mind and your subconscious to take, you got to start small, okay? Step two, change one behavior at a time.

You can't go out there and say, I'm gonna change everything today. I don't like myself, I don't like the way I look, I don't like the way my hair looks. I don't like my complexion. I don't like how much I weigh, I don't like what I eat, I'm gonna change it all, every single thing, you can't, don't do it. Okay, trying to correct the behavior. Again, you got to start small, but do one at a time. You know, going back to the point about the desserts, do one, like I'm gonna get rid

of the dessert habit. And I'm just gonna switch to yogurt and do that for a little bit. tiny, small changes to your life over time, as you add another one. And another one and another one another one become more sustainable, makes it a lot easier. Third, talk about it. Don't do it in about what we talked about this before. And we were talking about the other other article, don't do it in a

bubble. If you need to change a behavior that you don't like, join a support group, find other people doing the same thing. Have somebody to talk to about to quit smoking, quit smoking with somebody else, have a group of people you're going to talk about quit smoking with you're going to change your lifestyle, you're gonna start working out deal with somebody who could support you. Third, and this is huge, huge from this article from the APA. Don't beat

yourself up. Don't don't if you miss a day at the gym, or you cheat and have a cookie instead of yogurt. Don't beat yourself up about it. Right? Everybody has ups, everybody has downs. Everybody has good days and bad days. As soon as you start to beat yourself up about it, then you're going back, you're feeding right into the

subconscious. You're going back and kind of feeding into what you have been taught those learned behaviors that you can't get over that you cannot overcome, that you can't get through. And as soon as you put yourself up about it, guess what? It's like food for those negative thoughts and emotion. So don't do it. Just Just don't do it. And third, ask for

support, ask for help. You know, speak to somebody and find somebody to talk to you about it outside of your accountability partner, your accountability group or whatever group it is, you may or may be turning to for support, you know, talk to a coach, if you need to talk to a therapist or get some counseling. You need some sort of release or conversation to kind of get you over the

hurdles. That in a nutshell is kind of like the path of where we come from when we're trying to make new year's resolutions and where we're trying to get over the hurdle of. Okay, these big changes have to be done. They have to be done today. I've got to do it all. Don't and that's why I call them no yours. resolutions, you know, January is a great time, we coming off a wonderful break holiday break.

You spend it with family and friends, maybe not so much this year with COVID and the restrictions that are in place. Normally, you've had time to reflect, and maybe you've had some time off from work. And you're going to set that New Year's resolutions I say, don't do it today, do it tomorrow, do it next week. It's a new year's resolution, it's a two day resolution. Make a resolution today, whatever day it may be,

could be may 31. It could be September 2, it could be March 17, whatever it may be, make today's resolution, not a new year's resolution. When you're ready for the change. Make the commitment. That's all. It's not hard. Okay, I know you're gonna say it is hard. Change is hard, no question about it. But it's not hard to make that commitment

on any day of the year. And when you decide that you want to start that journey, pack, if you're looking for somebody to hold you accountable, and to help you out, seek me out positively underscore j j y on Instagram, I'll follow you. If you haven't charted on Instagram, you know, to chart your path, your ups and downs, your struggles with whatever challenge it is that lays before you. Follow me follow you back. I'll help you as best I can. I'll be there to support and

encourage you. Because everybody needs a friend, everybody needs somebody in their corner, everybody needs a champion on their side. And when you need somebody who's gonna kind of lift you up and give you positive feedback, I can't do that for you, I'll be more than happy to do it. But I would also suggest finding others just like these articles, Dr. Powell, find a support group, find somebody to go through the process with you. And it will make all the

difference in the world. As you start to go through your transformation. As you're on this positivity quest. I talked about it in a pretty previous episode. Positivity quests are a great way to kind of move yourself forward to find other people who are on the same path.

And Heck, why not make that your New Year's resolution, that you're going to just be on a positivity quest, and commit to it, do one thing a day, tiny, one thing a week, one thing a month, going back to our conversation about start small, you can do it, I believe in you, you just need to believe in yourself. So if you have to make a new year's resolution, or you did make a new year's resolution, congratulations,

step one of the process. If you haven't yet, make a new year's resolution any day, anytime, commit to making a change in your life. And you've got this just start small, make a difference. Make small improvements. And you'll quickly find that you're on a wonderful path to something new. As an example, recently, for myself, I committed and it's not New Year's I started this back in December, I committed to getting up in the morning. And meditating spend about 10 or 15

minutes using the comm app. If you don't know it, it's a great app. Yes, it's paid, you got to pay for it. But it's worth every penny, at least to me to be able to get up, spend some time with myself, meditate on topic, think through it set the tone for the day. And it has been a great source of calm and enjoyment for me. Over the last 30 days. It's been just a wonderful part of my life. And now we'll make it a priority for myself. For the rest of my life. I don't see a

way to change that. But I started small, I started thinking about it. I looked into it. I did a little bit one week, a little bit of next week. And next thing you know, every morning, I'm getting up, I'm

doing it. It's how I start my day, before I get in the shower before I make breakfast before I make coffee even says me and my dog sitting together, kind of in peace, quiet tranquility, focusing on the topic at hand, focusing on what I want to do looking inside myself, reflecting on what I'm going to do today. And it's been about a positive change in my life. And I think you can do the same thing. whatever it is you're going to change whatever it may be that you're looking to change

in life. You could do it. Make it a part of your New Year's resolution start small and go after it. You've got it I know you do. And as we close out this episode, I just want to say thank you for being here today. You know as always, be well be happy, be you and until the next time. May your quest for positivity begin today. If you like today's episode, please give us a five star rating and subscribe today. For more on my

positivity quest. Follow me at positively underscore Jay on Instagram and have an amazing