Dan Says

We are now three weeks into the New Year and I bet most people have already given up on any resolutions they may have set. If you haven’t already given up, by this time next month you probably will have. But there are a few people who have kept up with their resolutions and will continue all year; and hopefully they’ll continue past this year. Some of those people are just determined people who want to see a positive change in themselves. But most people that continue their resolutions do so because their resolutions tend to have one consistent trait: they’re simple.

So many people at the end of December make a resolution to do something drastic. “This year, I’m going to work out for two hours every single day.” “I’m never going to eat any more junk food!” But by the end of the first week they’ve found that they’re too busy to go to the gym two hours every single day. Or they find that with Pringles, once you pop, you actually can’t stop.

Resolutions shouldn’t come at the start of every year; they should come whenever you want to bring about a change in yourself. It makes sense why so many people set them in December. The end of the year reminds each of us of how quickly time passes and how we should be seizing every moment. But you can bring about a change in yourself any time of the year. The key is to just do it in baby steps.

Most people want to read more. Some set vague goals that they’re going to read a book a month, so they buy twelve new books that serve as paper weights for the remainder of the year. Other people say that they are going to read perhaps two hours every Sunday, but then never get around to it because they have too many other things to do on Sunday. So rather than reading a large amount of time on one day a week, just read fifteen minutes every day. As busy as you are, most people can find fifteen minutes every day to read, even on your busiest day. Wake up fifteen minutes earlier or go to bed fifteen minutes later. If you can’t even find fifteen consecutive spare minutes in the day, break it into three five minute increments. If it takes you two minutes to read a page (a conservative estimate) then you’ll read about seven pages a day. That’s almost fifty pages a week and two hundred pages per month. That’s about a book a month. If you can find thirty minutes (or three ten minute breaks) you can read two books a month.

But it doesn’t have to just be with reading. Take fifteen minutes every day to learn a new language or learn a new hobby. Those fifteen minutes will add up to you making the most of your New Year. If last year you had just taken fifteen minutes every day to read, you could have read twelve more books. That’s twelve more topics that can serve as clever anecdotes at a cocktail party or at the water cooler. That could be twelve more topics that relate to your work that can get you that promotion you’ve been vying for. If you had just taken fifteen minutes every day over the past year, you could have made that difference. Looking back on your last year honestly, most people would agree that they could spare fifteen minutes every day. Just remember it this way: a year from now you’re going to wish you had started this today. So do it. It just takes fifteen minutes. It just takes baby steps.