2 tips on making New Year resolutions

I believe in making New Year resolutions. Or more accurately, I believe in sitting down for a few hours to deliberate about one’s life and the direction it is going.

December 31 is not a miracle date, nor is January 1 a magical destination which ushers in change of attitude and favourable feng shui.

There’s nothing special about the dates per se. But what matters is that for many of us, it’s the only time we care to sit down and think about what we want out of life. Here are two principles to help you make and keep your New Year resolutions.

Using 80/20 Pareto principle

Also known as “The law of the vital few”, the Pareto principle states that 80% of consequences stem from 20% of causes.

The principle was coined by Joseph Juran to help managers separate what he called the “vital few” resources from the “useful many”.

I found this principle to be applicable in many areas of life. It can be observed in a group work, time management or when choosing your priorities and investment. 

As anyone who has ever worked in a group project in school or university can testify, 20% of the team members do 80% of the work.

If you are part of a committee or an organisation, you might notice that 20% of the people are keys to the team’s success and the leadership should invest their time and attention in courting and nurturing them.

In terms of investment (be it time or money), 20% of the activities result in 80% of the results. How this might help in planning your resolutions? 

Think of it this way: most of the activities in which you invest your time on (80%) are either fixed or essential routine, so you are unlikely to change them.

But you could identify and focus on choosing 20% of the activities that are likely to bring about positive results.

In terms of time, since 80% of your time is dedicated to mundane and immediate needs, you have 20% of your time left to cater to personal growth and development. Everyone gets 24 hours a day and assuming that you have a typical eight-hour work shift, you will spend: 

• eight hours on work
• seven hours on sleep
• two hours on commute (to and fro)
• two hours on meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner)
• an hour on miscellaneous (shower, dressing up, waiting for lift, etc)

Total hours spent: 20

Total hours remaining: four

These remaining four hours are yours and how you spend those four hours is what separates you from the rest of the pack who have the same amount of time as you do.

What do you use your four-hour free time for? Is there a better way to utilise these four hours in your daily life?

Maybe you could cut two hours from whatever you are doing and use the remaining two hours to try learning something new.

The flipside of the Pareto principle is also true.

If 20% of the effort produces 80% of the results, then it means that 20% of the result should consume 80% of your effort.

Focus on these few things or people that matters, concentrate your energy on them.

Questions to ask as you apply the 80/20 Pareto principle: what are the 20% of the relationship, people, activities, and personal habits that will make 80% of change? What are the 20% of the activities and people that you should spend 80% of your time on?

Confront your fear of freedom

Not only are we afraid of our shortcomings and failures, we are also afraid of what we can do and the freedom to actually do it.

It is easier to say external circumstances do not permit us to do what we want, rather than admitting our complicit in not taking responsibility in determining our life and acknowledging our freedom to do something differently.

This “burden of freedom” is a recurring theme in the thoughts of existentialist philosophers like Soren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Kierkegaard says we are dreaded by possessing freedom. Sartre says humans like to flee from freedom and act in “bad faith”.

We disown our innate freedom by adopting false values and mechanical roles for ourselves. Our burden of freedom, that is, the requirement to decide for oneself what to do, is lifted from our shoulders since we see our behaviour as though set in stone by the definition of the role we have adopted, for example, the role of a waiter, clerk, executive officer, salesperson, family man

Here’s a personal analogy to illustrate an attempt to escape from freedom.

I had often thought that I really sucked at drawing.

I couldn’t possibly draw anything beautiful.

One summer, I took a drawing class. My lecturer, Alyssa Johnson, was patient and attentive, particularly to beginners like me.

Encouraged by her faith and guidance, I worked hours after hours to complete a drawing.

At the end of the course, I was stunned by what I had drawn. It was then that I have a fear: the fear of freedom.

I no longer could say, “I am just not good at drawing” or “I am born this way, not to be artistic”.

I could no longer blame external circumstances and individuals. I have the freedom and capability to draw… but since it took me multiple rounds of four-hour shifts to create a decent drawing, I am just not willing to put in the hours to practise and draw. It is a conscious and deliberate decision.

I haven’t been drawing since that drawing class though. But I can no longer make excuses and act in bad faith by seeing myself as a passive object with which external circumstances can act on.

I am an individual who decides to draw or not to draw.

“What’s the difference?” you may ask. Huge.

In the former instance, I see myself as a mere object with which external circumstances rule over me.

I see myself as having no control, merely an object to be acted upon.

In the latter, I acknowledge myself as an individual agent who acknowledges my freedom to make decisions, and a complicit actor in my present and future situation. Most of all, I know I have a freedom that I can utilise to free myself from unfavourable situation.

Bonus principle: set aside Thinking Time

The two stated principles have helped me to develop an enabling attitude, with which I can create better New Year resolutions.

They are, one hopes, worth sharing.

As for the more usual tips, you might want to develop fewer and more specific New Year resolutions.

Write it somewhere accessible and visible. Share your goals with the people who matter. You will be more likely to do them.

Most of all, the habit of developing New Year resolutions shouldn’t be seen as a one-off routine.

You should always set aside Thinking Time, during which you “do nothing” but deliberately think about your life. Go back to Stephen Covey’s classic “7 Habits of Successful People”. Block off a part of your weekend to rethink, restrategise and recharge. 

Finally, as this is my last column for 2015, I would like to thank the team behind The Malaysian Insider and the readers who have been following this column since it started in January 2015. Here’s to a great year ahead! – December 26, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.