A NEW BEGINNING

Writer (Iqra Rasheed Sial)

2020 changed our world a lot. With COVID, there were people that passed away from it as well as people that have recovered. Health is a great blessing. Other problem we saw were poverty, people unable to receive adequate food, and some unable to pay rent. Even when COVID is gone, some will still struggle. But it’s time to be positive and optimistic. Focus on the good that you have with you, help someone else if you can, and have faith things will get better. With the arrival of the New Year comes new hopes, new resolutions, new reasons to celebrate love and life, and new reasons to set big goals and work towards achieving them. The beginning of the New Year is certainly the best time to contemplate over all your past deeds and envision what you could do in life to turn your full potentiality into actuality.
New Year’s Resolutions:
Many of us are going to be setting one or more New Year’s Resolutions. Sadly, most of these well-intentioned declarations will be abandoned quickly. According to a research Seventy-seven percent of the resolvers studied made it through a full week, then 55 percent stuck with their goals for a month. By June, six months into the New Year, only 40 percent of those who had made a New Year’s resolution were still sticking with the goal.
How you can choose smarter resolutions?
You can choose a smarter resolution by asking two questions, the first question to ask yourself is: if there were no pressure from anyone else, what would you, personally, like to change? This is important, because studies have indicated that people are more likely to succeed in changing their behavior when they are motivated by internal rather than external forces. The second question is are you physically and psychologically capable of doing what it takes to succeed?
Why Do People Fail to Keep Their Resolutions?
“Every time we fail, we damage our own self-esteem,” says Janet Polivy, a psychologist at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. “We make ourselves less able to bounce back the next time. They blame themselves. And that makes it hard to start again.”
• Participants believe that both enjoyment and importance are significant factors in whether
They stick to their resolutions. In fact, the researchers found. The enjoyment factor was the only thing that mattered. In other words, if the participants were getting immediate rewards from their new habits, they would be more likely to stick to them.
• Peter Bregman, writing in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network, argues: “When we set goals, we’re taught to make them specific and measurable and time-bound. But it turns out that those characteristics are precisely the reasons goals can backfire. A specific, measurable, time-bound goal drives behavior that’s narrowly focused and often leads to either cheating or myopia. Yes, we often reach the goal, but at what cost?” Bregman advocates creating an area of focus rather than goals: “An area of focus that taps into your intrinsic motivation offers no stimulus or incentive to cheat or take unnecessary risks, leaves every positive possibility and opportunity open, and encourages collaboration while reducing corrosive competition. All this while moving forward on the
Things you. Value most.”
• Making resolutions work involves changing behaviors—and in order to change a behavior, you have to change your thinking (or “rewire” your brain). Brain scientists discovered that habitual behavior is created by thinking patterns that create neural pathways and memories, which become the default basis for your behavior when you’re faced with a choice or decision. Trying to change that default thinking by “not trying to do it,” in effect just strengthens it. Change requires creating new neural pathways from new thinking.
Happy new year to all of you. Stay safe and appreciate your blessings always.