The time is nearly upon us once again. The turn of the new year, when we all get a fresh start. And I don’t know about you, but I feel like the whole world could use one.
If you’ve followed the blog for a while, you know I write about New Year’s resolutions almost every year. I find them inspiring, even when failing at them miserably.
I know a good portion of you read that and rolled your eyes. After all, so many resolutions are never followed through on it must be pointless, right?
Wrong.
“So, Aaron, you must keep every single New Year’s resolution you set then?”
Of course not! I’m human. I failed most of my 2020 resolutions (not for lack of trying, mind you.)
But I love resolutions anyway because they’re about making a concerted effort to change and improve yourself. The process of trying to keep a resolution is, I believe, more important than whether or not you succeed at the resolution itself.
Failing at a New Year’s resolution can actually be kind of exciting in itself! How could that possibly be, you ask? Read on and discover the most inspiring things about failing to keep your New Year’s resolution.
- You Can Identify a Smaller Step Toward Progress
When trying to reach a big goal, incremental steps that build-up towards it are essential tools people use. Yet, it’s so easy to make too big a step and end up stymied.
If you set a lofty resolution and find that you hit a stumbling block and failed to keep it, take a close look at the step in your process where it happened. See if you can identify something smaller you could have done first to make you more ready for that missed step. With smaller steps to climb, you’ll soon be pushing toward success again!
- Successful People Fail
“The only difference between the master and the novice is that the master has failed more times than the novice has even tried.”
I have no idea where that quote comes from, but it’s fantastic and should be in everyone’s workspace. Failure is scary—Scratch that. Failure is utterly terrifying. But sometimes, we have to fail to learn how to succeed in the future.
Failure leads to learning. Learning leads to growth. Growth leads to hope. Hope leads to the Light Side.
Or, at least, that’s the preferred path. If you can follow it, you can turn your failure into a positive thing and improve yourself even without keeping your resolution!
- You’ll Have Motivation For Next Time
So you didn’t quite manage to do 10,000 push-ups every day this year? No sweat! Next time you try to crush that goal, the memory of having failed previously will push you to try even harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Or, even if that isn’t the case, you might just…
- Discover that Goal Just Isn’t For You
Sometimes you set a goal, and you’re super excited about it. You want nothing more than to go out there and get it! And then you start doing it and realize, “Hey! This kind of sucks! I’m not getting anything out of this!”
That’s okay! If the goal isn’t going to benefit you anyway, then it’s better to fail at it now and redirect your time and energies to something that will produce value for you. Good thing you set that New Year’s resolution to help you figure that out, right?
- Failing Means You Tried
Sometimes the most critical part of a New Year’s resolution is just that you tried to keep it. You made the effort, even if you couldn’t sustain it. And sometimes, the first step toward a better you is just knowing that you tried, even if it didn’t work out this time.
What’s your favorite part about failing at a New Year’s resolution? Feel free to share in the comments. And happy goal setting!
