Stack Your Resolutions

Instead of swinging at new ones every year.

There were so many failed resolutions in the last decade. Only a handful stuck. Hence in this decade, instead of haphazardly swinging at new gimmicky resolutions, I will try and stack on the ones that stuck:

1. My gym clothes are my pyjamas:

Yes. I wear my gym clothes to bed, and my daughter loves embarrassing me by broadcasting this fact to everyone at the dinner tables … This proven trick anchors on the idea of reducing the toll of mental decisions. There are just fewer decisions to battle before bed than right before a workout. The same trick could work for other habits: It could be removing salted egg fried fish skins from your bedside drawer, or sitting further away from that nice coworker who always listens to you whining.

2. Tweak breakfast:

I used to eat junk for breakfast. I decided to change to whole foods. The results quickly showed and it was motivating. Tweaking just one meal meant I was changing 33.33333% of all the food I gorged. A 33% change of anything is meaningful (imagine if your salary is up by 33% … )

3. Delegate to the professionals:

My mom hired a personal trainer and it was the best thing that has happened to her. We tried endless apps and YouTube videos before, but nothing worked as well: She now exercises regularly, and she is also a lot more efficient in every workout, because she is doing it correctly. The same was true when we invested in a couple counsellor. We (or I) paid attention to each other more regularly, and were handling the interactions more efficiently, because we were approaching them relatively more correctly. This applies to all facets of life: work, relationships, health. We instinctively see the value of not trying to cast all our own iron woks or stick acupuncture needles into our sore lower backs. We just need to make mental leap to see it definitely makes more sense to delegate the tasks of truly critical things in life to the professionals.