Why Resolutions Don’t Last

How long will it take for us to forget the surreal experience of waking up to Wednesday’s apocalyptic red sky and an eerie orange light? By the time we’ve wiped down the rusty film of dust that covers just about everything we own, both the temporary thrill and subsequent inconvenience will no doubt be forgotten.

And what about our Red Day ‘resolutions’? We may have resolved to be more conscious of our water usage, because we had a brief experience of what it’s like for country dwellers facing drought-induced dust storms. We may have been more aware of our friends or colleagues’ wellbeing, particularly if they suffer asthma or allergies, and decided that sparing more thought for other people is no bad thing. Or we may just have resolved to get the duster out more regularly, because the forced wipedown made us realize that it’s really quite pleasant to have a clean and tidy home.

In reality, though, our Red Day resolutions will probably go the same way as our New Year ones – usually a slow fading into the resolution abyss. In other words, it doesn’t take long to return to our life’s status quo, whatever we’ve experienced.

When we make ‘resolutions’, we’re not really making resolutions at all. Our resolutions would be more aptly called ‘intentions’ because we may have the best of intentions, but not always the best of actions. Intending to do something has a built-in opt-out clause. And that’s just like resolutions – we make resolutions knowing that it’s highly likely we won’t be seeing them through.

So what if we started to make ‘promises’ rather than resolutions? Suddenly the idea seems a whole lot more serious. Now it means that we’re breaking our promise when we don’t carry out what we said we would. Now we’re really committing to something, having to think whether we really can and will keep our word.

Keeping one promise to ourselves is far more powerful than making (and breaking) half a dozen intentions. Next time you go to make a resolution of the ‘intention’ variety, commit to making a promise instead.

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