Okay, it’s the New Year and you’ve made your commitment to change. And, as you suspect, even though you are sincere and really mean it this time, it will be over by February. Why? Is it that you are weak-willed, lacking basic discipline, unable to fulfill your promises to yourself?
No, it is the structure you are in. The point we’ve been making for years now is the profound insight that the underlying structure of anything will determine its behavior. And there are two typical types of behavior that structure generates: Oscillating and advancing. So why do most New Year’s resolutions fall into the oscillating camp?
Motivation tells the story and sets up the structural dynamics. Most resolutions come from remorse. There’s something you think you did wrong – a bad habit, a weakness for junk food, driving too fast, not being in touch with friends as much as you thought you should be – there are millions of items to put on your guilt-trip list.
Most New Year’s resolutions are oriented around problem solving. The problem is you weigh too much, go on a diet. The problem is you don’t exercise enough, go to the gym. The problem is you still smoke, give up smoking. The problem is you don’t spend enough time in your personal development, dedicate yourself this year (as you said you would do last year.) Problem solving is among the worst ways to try to accomplish anything of significance. The intensity of the problem leads to actions to have the problem go away. These actions, though, reduce the intensity of the problem, so you are less motivated to act in the future.
Now it’s February and you’ve done a good job so far of sticking to your resolution, and to celebrate, you fall right off the wagon. Over time, your motivation weakens, and the underlying structure, the path of least resistance that the structure is generating, is to drift back into old habits.
You blame yourself, not the structure you are in. You may try again, this time with a lot more guilt tripping and pep talks. But you are up against the structure you are in. You are in a rocking chair structurally, and movement forward MUST lead to movement backwards.
That’s not to say that there are not things you’d like to do this year that are different from last year. However, the moment you are trying to solve yourself, you are in a rocking chair. Success is not sustainable, and so it cannot last.
What can last is the creative process. The true creative process. And that’s not problem solving. Creating is taking action to have something come into being, the outcome you want. Problem solving is taking action to have something go away, the conditions you don’t like.
Change your orientation, and you will change your chances of sustainable success.
Think in terms of outcomes you want to create. And realize that the absence of the problem is not the same as a real outcome you want to create.
Create structural tension by these simple steps: identifying the outcome you want to create, defining the current reality you have in relationship to this outcome. These two data points generate structural tension, like an archer’s bow stretched aiming the arrow at the target.
The structure evokes the minds ability to invent a way to accomplish the goal. Then, when you take actions on behalf of this outcome, you build momentum. You are not in a rocking chair, you are in a sports car ready, willing, and able to drive you where you want to you.
