New Years Resolution
On January 1st, 2011 millions of Americans will awaken early to meet the steely gray dawn of a new year; their hardened gazes, pulsing with visceral desire, will pierce into the approaching sunrise while boasting a haughty defiance. “I’m coming for you, 2011,” they’ll say, staring down the world outside their window with the same testosterone-filled passion as Rocky Balboa facing down Drago, or Bill O’Reilly eating a ham sandwich. Their goal will be simple: follow this year’s New Year’s resolution or go down in a blaze of glory trying.
On January 2nd, 2011 almost every American will have failed spectacularly at this task. Excuses will follow: I set my goals too high; I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into; grafting a human head onto a giraffe’s body is neither anatomically feasible nor aesthetically pleasing. It may appear that everybody fails for a different reason, but these are all different coats of paint on the same issue: laziness. Laziness, not some series of transcendent cosmic events controlling your life, causes resolutions to fail. So this article will not break down each individual reason why New Year’s resolutions fail, but it will instead help to combat the source from which these failures spring.
1) Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it
Professional bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman says this before he puts on a spandex jumpsuit and squats a metric ton (2,000 pounds, or roughly 910 kg). He says this while he’s squatting a metric ton. He probably says it in the shower when he’s done squatting, in the car on the way home, and when he calls a restaurant to make reservations. He’s a bodybuilder, not a conversationalist. But he’s also apparently a brilliant philosopher, because this is the best possible advice for any situation, especially attaining New Year’s resolutions. Suck it up. Just do it. Don’t be your own undoing. Almost everybody is their own undoing. At the cusp of every personal breakthrough there is a wall of convenient excuses that rush out of every self-preservation reflex your brain has to offer. You may tell yourself you don’t have the time for this, that you’re not sure you’re doing it right, that now’s not the right time. All these excuses crumble under the weight of ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it.
2) If you don’t do it then you’re a quitter, which is embarrassing.
Seriously. Telling yourself you’re going to do something, preparing yourself to do it, then walking up to said thing and immediately wimping out is just embarrassing. Life is tick-tocking away, and you’re going to spend that time wimping out? That’s just sad. You might never get a chance again after wimping out once. Say you’re standing in your driveway, about to go to go for a three mile run, but then wimp out because you’re afraid you’re out of shape and you’ll look bad running. Heavens, people driving by might mock you! The horror! So you turn, dejected, and start walking back into your house and then a tree falls on you or something. Now you’ll never get a chance to run again because you wimped out. Failing miserably can be acceptable if adequate levels of effort are put forth, but wimping out is just inexcusable.
3) Not being lazy is greatest thing in the world.
The advice of this article is not applicable to the general population; it is for the individual. Most people will go right on failing because of their lazy nature. But if you, the individual, decide that there ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it, then you’ll most likely succeed. And succeeding is outstanding. It’s like sports: winning breeds more winning. You overcome laziness once and it becomes easier to overcome every subsequent time. You’ll be in a dead sprint in the race of life with no signs of slowing down while everybody around you is still reading the instruction manual for their Segway. It’s like running downhill, like shooting the gap, like getting in the crease. I am running out of sports analogies. It’s really, really good.
So there it is. Don’t worry about the highly specific reason you have probably already attributed to the impending failure of your New Year’s resolution. I can assure you it more than likely arises from sheer laziness. But now you can identify the real problem and attack it with that most perfect of advice, ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it. Spandex jumpsuit optional.
