Why do We Fail in our Resolutions? | Three Keys in Life Change

Why do We Fail in our Resolutions?

It's that time of year again—the time for 'big changes," the time for turning over a new leaf, the time for resolutions. We have all heard the statistics about how eighty percent of New Year's resolutions are moth-balled by Valentine's Day and how eighty percent of those are defunct by St. Patty's. Whether those stats are real or not, we all believe the failure rate is high. Regardless, statistics are of little use.

What matters is why. Why do so many of us fail to reach the goals we set for ourselves? My experience tells me there are several reasons. These are (1) We simply don't know ourselves; (2) We were not bread to be a generation who genuinely loves the good; and (3) we have not learned to love and embrace the pain of discipline. What I mean is that this is the kind of internal work we must do before we can start making changes to our lives.

1. We don't know ourselves (especially our weaknesses and how to navigate them)

Someone has said, "To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom." Some have ascribed it to Socrates, others to Aristotle. We won't debate that here. Today we are people of extremes. We are either floating on the airy heights of self-adoration and vainglory or wallowing in woeful self-loathing on the other. All too often we oscillate between these peaks and valleys numerous times within the same twenty-four hours. Gone are the days when deep soulful men, bristling with competence, stepped away and meditated deeply on their weaknesses with maturity and dignity. 

Knowing Our Weaknesses

When I speak of "knowing self," I refer to a personal intimate knowledge of one's own weaknesses. Today, in the age of self-aggrandizement, we are not keen on considering our weaknesses. The tendency is to turn a blind eye to them altogether. But the successful and the accomplished hone in on their weaknesses. This does not necessarily mean erasing them, much less hiding them, but rather building strategies around them.

Any person dealing with a particular struggle can quickly gain mastery if they do so by building strategies that prevent themselves from succumbing to the weakness. This will not necessarily nip the problem in the bud, but it will provide a strong hedge and the opportunity for success.

The Man Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was known as a man among men. But it was not that it all came naturally to him. He grew up in America's Gilded Age among New York's WASP elite. At this time there was a so-called "family disease" that plagued America's upper echelon at the time. The medical profession termed it neurasthenia. In some ways, it served as a catch-all term for serious anxiety, depression, and nervous disorders. Among the elite, it seemed to more or less describe a condition of an acute lack of social functionality. For the most part, at least among high societal elites, it likely was the result of children raised by a highly over-functioning parent that ultimately left the grown child unable to function as an independent and self-actualized person.

Whatever the family "disease" was, Roosevelt took note of it and arranged his life to prevent it. In other words, he strategized and planned his success. Hence he put himself out there in order to expose himself to discomfort, challenge, and ultimate risk. Whatever neurasthenia was, he was not going to succumb to it. Consequently, Roosevelt took a no-excuses, no-quarter approach to life. He looked upon himself as a man to be constantly practiced and improved by exposing himself to boxing, hunting, and all forms of rugged outdoorsmanship.

2. We are not a Generation bread to genuinely love the Good.

We of course cannot stop at simple self-discipline. Success does not stem from the mere "don'ts," but from the "do's." By this, true success in any endeavor ultimately comes from a positive vision for bettering oneself and the world around us. You can't get to your destination by negation, but only by a positive orientation. You do not back your way to success but must strive forward towards it. If you want to change something in the world, you must love something of value first. It must be good, ethical, and have the virtue of inherent value. You must begin by loving the good, and then this must manifest in pursuing a particular good.

3. We have not learned to love the pain of discipline.

One thing I have learned about myself is that when I do not make the pain of discipline a goal in itself, I shirk away from it. As long as we have a mentality of comfort, we cannot press through the pain which leads to lasting personal change.

There is a famously raw quote by Bruce Lee in the book Bruce Lee: Artist of Life.

Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life! Do not be concerned with escaping safely- lay your life before him!!

Imagine if we applied such tenacity to every activity in life. It is a telling quote that exposes his mindset toward both combat and success. It is a risk-everything, winner-take-all-all mindset. Lee was known for his tenacious daily disciplined training regimen. What he is saying here is that when you have trained for the big game, the big fight, or you are threatened in the streets and your life is on the line, this is no time for holding back—no time for avoiding pain. To take a pain avoidance approach is to invite failure, to invite loss, or even invite death if that is the stakes.

Above all, whether it is the big fight or the daily grind of preparation, Lee is not afraid of the pain. Moreover, he welcomes it. When pain is the only veil through which one must pass to accomplish a stated goal, our mindset must change to make pain an ongoing pleasure. When we feel pain, it means we are succeeding, at least if the pain is directly related to moving the ball.

For much of my life, I struggled with an ongoing battle with Kidney disease. It was a progressively degenerative disease. As my situation deteriorated significantly in my late 30's and early 40's, I had to press into my mindset further. I was running a new start-up organization, a husband, and raising six boys. I could not let them down. The disease often caused extremely painful gout, especially in my ankles and toes. the pain was like having someone smash and break your ankleand then toss charcoal lighter fluid on it and light it up.

Of course, this pain also implied that my kidneys were further deteriorating and I would be facing surgery or death.  To cope, I started thinking of my pain as a sign of life. "If I can feel pain," I told myself, "then I am alive. And if I am alive, I can love my family, fight for my life, and have hope." Believe it or not, that embrace of the pain is often all I had to get through sometimes.

Final Thoughts

I opened by asking why people typically fail in our resolutions.  So why do we fail? In large part, we fail because we fail to develop the foundational character virtues that make both small and large resolutions possible. This is to say, in order to fulfill a “resolution,” we must first develop the character habitus of resoluteness!

It is a good thing to take some time for self-assessment. What kind of person are you? Who do you want to be? What truly motivates you? How do you respond to negativity, stress, or mistreatment? What are the characteristics in you that you do not understand? These are a short list of key questions in the journey to the knowledge of self. If you do not know yourself, you cannot navigate yourself Toward great accomplishment and ends