New Year’s resolutions don’t change anything until we change ourselves

By David McElroy · January 1, 2014

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I’m sure they’re useful for some people, but they don’t make any difference to me. I think I’ve finally figured out why.

Resolutions seem to focus on a desired outcome or behavior rather than the reason behind the behavior. Just wanting to change your outcomes isn’t enough. You have to change your decisions that have produced the outcomes you’re trying to eliminate.

I find it really easy to list the obvious things I’d like to change about myself. I’d like to drop the weight that I’ve gained in the last five years. I’d like to move to a home I like better and is more suited to me. I’d like to make more money and do work that’s fulfilling. I’d like to keep my house cleaner. I’d like to have a romantic relationship that I’m happy with and is emotionally healthy. I’d like to find the motivation to complete the film projects I’ve been working on.

This isn’t rocket science. I can make a nice list of them. I can even promise that I’m going to do them all. But that doesn’t work for me. That approach also doesn’t seem to work for others. Why not?

I think it’s because we fail to look at the reasons we do the things we do.

It doesn’t do me a bit of good to swear I’m going to use willpower to force myself to quit eating sweets and exercise more unless I look at why I’ve made the behavioral decisions that led me to gain weight. It doesn’t do me any good to resolve to make more money unless I ask myself why I’ve done the things I’ve done in the last decade that have led me to squander my talent and opportunities. And so forth.

I’m where I am in life because of the decisions I’ve made. Just like a lot of people, I was saddled with some really poor childhood programming that I didn’t understand for many years, but I can’t blame that forever. As an adult, I have to take responsibility for changing the things in myself that have led to places I sometimes don’t want to be. But in too many cases, I’ve been willing to complain about the results I’ve been getting without changing the decisions that create the outcomes.

I started changing some of my decisions a few months ago. Some of those decisions would seem trivial to others, but they’re big deals to me. (Anyone who’s known me well would be shocked to see me take a job that requires me to go to an office and work for others, for instance, even though this is typical for most people.)

I would love to say that every decision has led to immediate results, but that’s not the case. Change takes longer than I’d like it to take. But I can either make decisions and count on gradual change or I can keep wishing and hoping for magical change because I put something on a list and “resolved” to do it. I know which one seems like the approach that might bring results.

I’ve been doing some things lately that I didn’t want to do. For instance, I’ve done some work that I didn’t really enjoy, but it’s the first step in pushing myself in new directions to make myself more financially stable and prosperous. I’ve changed the way I handle some relationships in my life. I’m more willing to make painful decisions to exclude people from my life who want an unequal relationship that I’m not willing to be part of.

These might not seem like big deals to you. The other decisions I’ve made might not sound like big deals to you, either. It might sound more interesting to make a list and promise to “make more money” and “have a good romantic relationship.” But I believe that making the more mundane decisions will do far more to produce positive outlines than any list of resolutions will.

If I’m still in the same place next year that I am today, it will be because I haven’t continued to make decisions every day that make me a better person, not because I didn’t make a list of grand outcomes that I promise to somehow fulfill.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who successfully uses resolutions each year, but maybe those people exist. For me, though, it’s not about the list of outcomes. It’s about making decisions each day that make me the man I should have made myself years ago.

Will that lead me to where I want to be? I can’t say for sure. Ask me in a year. Ask the people in my life in five years. If my outcomes are what I want them to be by then, it will be because of some terribly mundane decisions I’m making today. I have faith that it will be worth it.

At this point, I have to sell myself — the changes I’m making — to other people and see who wants to be a part of my future and has faith in me. That can be much more exciting than making resolutions each year.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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