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Don't make a new years resolution · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's the start of the new year.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about it.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: You are listening to Head Shrink Inc., your answers to life, relationships, and daily living.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hey all.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Merry Christmas.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Christmas is over.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're coming up to New Year now.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, New Year is kind of interesting in my line of work because I often hear people talking about, oh, it's a new year, I'm gonna make a resolution.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I see online people making resolutions of all sorts or saying they're going to make resolutions, or the latest blog post or the latest uh headline on you know CNN or Fox News or the Drudge Report or any one of those places, you inevitably see something about resolutions.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I I get frustrated with resolutions because inevitably, you know, there would have there's studies that show a large percentage of people fail at their resolutions or they just don't even start a resolutions, they just feel this pressure that they need to do something different.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I even I even kind of looked at a couple websites, you know, that are psychology-centric uh websites.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: One here is ten sure ways to keep your new year's resolutions, and you know, they're all basically the same.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Keep them simple, choose wisely, be realistic, try it in small portions, you know, have a time frame, make goals, yada yada, yada.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I think it's it gets kind of tiresome to see the same things written over and over again.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and actually, I feel a little bit sad for the people that the authors, because I I don't know how much more spin you can put on New Year's resolutions that haven't been already put out there.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So there's two so my spin on a resolution is don't make resolutions, because I don't think resolutions generally are a good idea.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's a good idea to change things in your life if there's something that needs to be changed, but I don't pr I don't subscribe to the idea that, well, it's a new year, so therefore you must do something new.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think if there's something in your life that's not working for you, regardless of whether it's the new year, you should just change it um and then go from there.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um a new year has nothing to do with it with change in your life.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm saying this or I'm doing this podcast.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's to encourage you not to make changes just because it's the new year.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's to encourage you to make changes because changes need to happen in your life, anyways.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um so with that being said, there's two ways that I think that um you can hold to things and stick to things you want to change just in general, not because it's a resolution and not because it's a new year.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, number one is knowing yourself.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that just seems kind of simple on the surface.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I I've talked with a couple with several couples actually today and yesterday, and we all have this kind of way that we are in the world.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so, for example, I say there's this fantasy of what you want to be in the world or how you want to be in the world, and then there's the reality of how you want how you are in the world.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, I'll be transparent here.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Transparently, you know, how I my fantasy of how I want to be in the world is I want to be super organized.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I want to have all my ducks in a row, I want things just to kind of line up very easily.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um the reality of what I am in the world is that that's not the case.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a detail person.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I am a risk taker, I have lots of irons in the fire, so to speak.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I live with eight other people who have their own goals and dreams and things that they want to be a certain way.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so this fantasy that I have of of how I want life to go is just not realistic, obviously, why I call it a fantasy.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I always strive for that fantasy, I'm I shouldn't say always, but I'm gonna often be disappointed and be frustrated and be uh let down because life just gets in the way.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things I think that's important with making change in your life is that you know yourself.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you know that you can't hold um to something very long, setting an unrealistic expectation for yourself is just gonna be disappointing to you.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so knowing yourself is the key and knowing, okay, is this something that you can accomplish?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't know yourself, you're gonna set yourself up for failure every time.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the ways to know yourself is just to meet up with a therapist and start having conversations.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I, or even like a life coach, I think that maybe feels a little bit less uh intense.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, oftentimes people think of therapy as this place to go where, oh, I need to get my life figured out or I need to get these deep issues discussed.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, therapy is a place where you just have a conversation where someone gives you feedback about choices that you've made in your life and maybe gives you a different perspective.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so, uh and it's a different perspective where you can actually know yourself.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would encourage you if you are wanting to make change in your life, potentially get with a life coach or a therapist that can give you honest feedback about um what change is possible in your life.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Someone asked me today, can you change your personality?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think you can.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's I mean, that's probably a raging debate between people.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that you can make choices in your life consistently that can go against kind of who you are as a person.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, will that change you?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not here to say that it will, but you you can change what you do, um, and that potentially may change your personality.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm not a personality scientist, so I'm just basing it off what I've seen as I work with couples and and families.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the knowing yourself is important.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I think once you decide like I can do this change because you know yourself, so it's like, oh, this is something that I think I could probably do.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the second part is to gather a community of people around you.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So now I think in general, a community is good because we are all designed for relationships.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and again, Maslow hierarchy of needs, for those of you that study psychology, I mean, relationships are one of the uh blocks in that hierarchy of needs.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be in relationship with one another.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that when you're in relationship, when you're in a like a consistent, committed, um, vulnerable, intimate type relationship, and I'm not even talking about sexual, I'm just talking about a relationship where you can talk about difficult things.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the type of places that um those are the type of relationships that people generally thrive in.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the things that um can help the most, I think, with any change that you want to make in your life.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So think about this.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say you make a change, uh, you want to change how you your eating style, for example.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that you know yourself well enough to know that, you know, it's something you can do, but it's gonna be a challenge.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so having a person come alongside you that um you trust that you can be vulnerable with that isn't gonna judge you when you make a mistake on something, is huge.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you don't have that in your life, chances of you being able to just start something new in your life is gonna be greatly reduced.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: So having that person, whether it's uh you know, mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, whoever, um is a good thing to have in your life that can help you with any kind of big decision-making process that you want to make.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it could be something as simple as like, hey, so-and-so, um, I am going to do this in my life.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to check in on me, and I want to be able to check in with you.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is this something you'd be willing to join me in on?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And chances are if you've cultivated a deeper relationship with them, they're not gonna refuse that.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna see that as an opportunity to grow your relationship and maybe even grow themselves.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something I think would be definitely beneficial in helping you um create lasting change in your life.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, I appreciate you listening.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's gonna be a new year, 2019's gonna be great.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I encourage you to uh email me if you have any questions at headshrinkinc.com or check out my website at docdavid.net.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um take care, have a great new year's, and we will be back soon.