Not breaking the chain

With new year around the corner, the pressure of new year’s resolutions is upon us. The lists from last year may come out and as we analyse how successful we believe we have been. If we haven’t ticked everything or anything of the list the self-loathing begins.

The negative mind talk of criticism lingers day after day until we start to believe it.

What am I doing with my life?

I never stick at anything?

What’s the point?

But shouldn’t the new year be about being kinder to ourselves, looking at what we’ve learnt throughout the year not the end result of it. It may be a cliché but its very true “Its about the journey not the destination.”

I recently read an article that described how comedian Jerry Seinfeld kept on top of his game and continued to produce quality jokes time after time. I found myself asking - did he have a number of jokes per year he needed to write? Did he target himself a self-loathed when he hadn’t come up with the top 10 jokes of the year? But no it wasn’t about that he described it focus as “not breaking the chain!”

As I read it became clearer on how he achieved this and how we could learn from this simple little statement. He marked out a whole year on a calendar and said: “for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.”

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it, and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

It's the journey and the joy of what you enjoy doing, rather than the results. The results will obviously arrive once the chain is long enough. So how can you implement this into your new year and long into 2017?

If you would like to work on making or breaking habits, or making things happen in 2017 please feel free to contact a coach.

If this article resonates with you please share with all your family and friends on social media.

Jo.