What No One Will Tell You About The New Year
New Year’s Day is around the corner, and everyone is talking about goals, plans and resolutions. Everyone is all cheery and optimistic and chatty about how great the new year is going to be, and while that’s all well and good, it’s all very dangerous.
Dangerous to your true goals, your true ambitions … because the new year doesn’t mean anything at all. You’re still carrying the same you from this year into next year. You’re still carrying the same habits and hangups that held you back over the last 12 months into the next twelve months.
Hoping the new year will be a magical fresh start is well … naive. Because the shift from December 31st to January 1st is no different than June 17th to the 18th. There’s no magic. There’s no “new.” There’s the same you tomorrow as is present today. Even if you do get a temporary psychological boost from a “clean slate” attitude, it’s temporary. Your old habits will take over unless you fight like hell to change how you respond to your daily patterns.
In other words, no one is coming to your rescue, and nothing will change until you do.
There’s no “new year” that matters – the only thing that will make a difference in your life is new actions. New mantras you repeat to yourself until you take them seriously. New patterns you establish through hard work and the pain of readjustment. New strengths you develop by becoming aware of how you let others program your behavior every day.
If you want to have a hell of a year, you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot of work.
A hell of a lot of work. On the inside.
I’m not saying this to discourage you. I’m telling you this so you’ll go into the new year with both eyes open and an awareness of what it will take to get what you want.
If you’re serious about doing things differently in the new year, start doing them differently today, before the new year starts. Get a head start. Prove you’re serious.
A goal is nice. But things won’t happen just because you want them to. You’ve got to prepare yourself for the discomfort of changing your patterns and tell yourself that’s a price you’ll be thrilled to pay.
Pain is temporary. Pride is forever. Make yourself proud this new year.
That is all,
Dave
I totally agree that there is nothing special about January 1st.
But, psychologically the first day of the first month of a new year is very motivating to make changes. IF you actually take consistent action. You can make a huge difference in your life by 1) accepting that only you are responsible for your actions and 2) committing to those steps that will improve your life.
“No One Is Coming” is a great mantra.
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I agree! The best I have ever heard this put succinctly is as such:
“If you only can only be resolute 1 day out of the year, that’s a bigger problem than anything on your new year’s resolution list”
Thanks for all the great articles this year Dave.
I”m glad you put this out there. I think that people who set NEw Year’s resolutions are not truly goal oriented. On my blog I encouraged people not to set New Year’s resolutions because it’s almost conditioned behavior that you don’t follow through. I’ve been reviewing my goals daily and it’s been such an amazing thing for making progress.
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[...] What No One Will Tell You About the New Year – makes the quite accurate point of ‘the shift from December 31st to January 1st is no different than June 17th to the 18th’ (better known as ‘you’re the same person now as you were in 2009 and just pretending something magical will happen at midnight won’t make it so.’) Not to discourage New Year’s resolutions… just pointing out they won’t necessarily turn out better than resolutions any other time of the year. Though there is some mental boost to starting something precisely on calendar dates, as anyone who has stayed up all Halloween night to start novelling exactly at midnight on the first of November can attest… [...]
[...] What No One Will Tell You About the New Year at Rock Your Day [...]
[...] Dave Navarro, in his typical ass-kicking fashion, advises that you approach your new year’s resolutions with your eyes wide open. Changing your behavior isn’t easy and will require consistent work and effort, so prepare for that. What No One Will Tell You About the New Year. [...]
[...] är tyvärr ofta dömda att misslyckas. Dave Navarro skriver på sin blogg Rock Your Day om What No One Will Tell You About The New Year: New Year’s Day is around the corner, and everyone is talking about goals, plans and resolutions. [...]
[...] third link is to a frank but true post from Rock Your Day titled What No One Will Tell You About The New Year. Now this is a post that I agree with. The New Year is not a new start, it is a new day. However, [...]
[...] What No One Will Tell You About The New Year Hoping the new year will be a magical fresh start is well … naive. Because the shift from December 31st to January 1st is no different than June 17th to the 18th. There’s no magic. There’s no “new.” There’s the same you tomorrow as is present today. Even if you do get a temporary psychological boost from a “clean slate” attitude, it’s temporary. Your old habits will take over unless you fight like hell to change how you respond to your daily patterns. In other words, no one is coming to your rescue, and nothing will change until you do. [...]
I agree with you about Jan 1 being just another day. Life evolves and one day leads into the next. The only thing different about Jan 1 is starting a new diary, the pages are always so pristine…..it’s the small things in life…..
[...] I feel relieved in telling you this, actually. In getting this off my chest, I feel like I’ve given myself a chance. It’s a new year and, yes, amazing things are possible, but I’m still me. I’m going to be carrying these insecurities, fears, and shortcomings with me. Nothing has really changed from 2009 to 2010. [...]
I’ve been reading and following your blog for I don’t know how long. Its always good stuff, but every once in a while you hit on something that really hooks me.
“Fight like hell” hooked me. And while I haven’t busted any earth shattering moves to radically change my life…..last night “I fought like hell” and turned off the TV and Facebook to do something productive and today “I fought like hell” to walk by the coffee cake on the kitchen table at work. Thanks
[...] What Noone Will Tell You About the New Year – Dave Navarro, Rock Your Day [...]
I have to disagree, Dave. As much as I like what you say and how you say it, January 1 is a special, magical day for some people…because they have DECIDED that it is.
If that decision is stronger than their old, bad habits, then this decision can trump any habits they are trying to break, or make.
You are right, that Jan 1 is no different than June 18, and if someone says “By all that’s holy, on June 18 I will never smoke another cigarette again!” then they can make this ‘magic day’ be the crutch they need for certainty.
Personally? I don’t make new years resolutions. I make birthday resolutions. My birthday is January 7, so I get a week to think about my goals before I make them serious. And January 7 is undeniably a day that something happens; sure, no special effects happen at midnight, nothing changes in the organic composition of my body from one day to the next, but I start TELLING people I am older. In my mind, I have to change a paradigm; whenever a person, a form, or a website asks me for my age, I have a new answer to give, because from one day to the next, everything HAS changed in one little slice of my identity. If I can tack a few new goals onto that change, and make the new me, with the new identity, a little better defined than how my habits made me last year, then the magic WORKS.
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