resolution

Every New Year, talk of resolutions start surfacing. In this blog series, we’ll identify what it takes to make a fresh start, and to resolve to change your life permanently.

You may look at me and see a fat man who has wasted way to much money on orange cheese puffs and Mountain Dew. You’re probably right. Every year, I make the resolution that I’ll get healthy, and every year I try and fail. So far, in the past several months, I’ve been on a roll and making progress.

Manlihood contributor, Justin Willoughby lost 600 pounds. He’s not only my personal fitness coach and friend, but he’s helping to inspire many people to think beyond a New Year’s resolution.

When it comes to fitness, he’ll tell you – it’s got to be a lifelong commitment to change.

And I know from experience in other areas of my life, that this truth rings and resonates to the core of everything.

Whatever it is that you want to change this year – whatever part of your life that needs a reboot- it doesn’t work unless you resolve to make a lifelong change.  As long as we view the New Year as a resolution starter, it gives us an out, because we can start over in ten months if we fail after two. I can tell you, if we’re talking about weight loss, that’s why I have probably lost the same 20 pounds 20 times!

Take some time this week to identify an area of your life that needs to change.
Your relationship with your spouse, your parenting skills, your work habits, launching a new career as a writer, becoming a more positive person – whatever it is that needs to change in your life.

Identify it.
And start meditating on what it means to change it permanently.

You don’t have to be stuck at a job you hate for the rest of your life. You don’t have to walk on eggshells because you are afraid your wife is going to leave you. You don’t have to be afraid about your kids making bad choices. You don’t have to be fat, or tired all of the time.  All of those things can be fixed – but all of those things will require you to change. And change doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen just because you say it will.

It starts with aligning your head and your heart with your destination, and it finishes when you fulfill your commitment. If you want to lose weight, you can lose it – but if you don’t commit to changes for the rest of your life you’re going to be in the same place you are now. You can resolve to be a better husband, but if you fall back into the same patterns of behavior, you’ll find yourself in the doghouse again.

It’s not just about changing behavior, it’s about changing your lifestyle.

That starts in your mind, and flows out from there – but change requires commitment, or you will always return to your old self by default.