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Do you have a New Year’s Resolution? Say it out loud if you do. If you don’t, think of one real quick. Just think of something you’d like to become in the future, or do in the future.
Now, think bigger.
No, bigger.
BIGGER.
Now, do you have some kind of fantastical, incredible, “No way!” desire in your head right now?
Do you?!
Cool. That’s probably not going to happen. You’re totally right to be hesitant about believing in it.
But here’s the important part, and I think I have a thought on this that isn’t stupid: that isn’t because you can’t do that huge, fantastical thing, but because you probably don’t want to do it.
Here’s what I’m getting at: you could decide to become a surgeon tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be awesome? You’d operate on people, you’d save countless lives, and you’d make serious money, and you could do it! You could do all of it!
This may shock you, but I’m not expert on brain surgery, but I think you’d just have to do is the following:
-Store away every cent you can. Like all of them. All of the cents. Get super stingy, move to a cheaper place, maybe befriend some old people, whatever you need to do.
-Get way better at studying than you probably are right now. Engage in trial and error until you find the best methods for you–whether it’s studying power points, using flashcards, or hiring a tutor to slap you every time you get an answer wrong. Be obsessive about finding what works.
-This is where storing away money comes in. Quit your job, say good-bye to your friends, and spend the next couple of years studying full-fucking-time for the MCATs. When I say full time, I mean every waking hour. This is what your life is now. I’m overcompensating here because the average reader here is way dumber and less prepared for med school than the average future surgeon, so you’ve got to really sacrifice.
-After all of that, you need to get an amazing MCAT score. If you don’t, restart this whole process.
-Then you need to get into a medical school that leads well into a surgery residency. Move if you need to, and use those study skills you spent a couple of years honing to dominate med school. Again, and still, this is your entire life.
-Allow yourself three days straight to sob uncontrollably when you realize what kind of debt all of this is putting you in.
-Ace like a million other exams that, again, you would currently get every question wrong on. You’ll get them right when you do take them though because, again, studying is literally your entire life.
-Get a surgeon residency. If you don’t, you’re kinda fucked, so do that.
-Be a resident for several years. Your pay will be low at first, and you’ll still have mountains of debt, and still have tons of studying to do.
-Finally, you’re a surgeon! Now just don’t fuck a single thing up, or your career could be over immediately–possibly while still under a mountain of debt!
Oh, and there’s like a million other mini-steps between all of those steps.
Anything is Possible, But…
Now, obviously that process sounds fucking awful, but is it physically possible? Absolutely. Within the realm of what’s physically possible, you could do all of that.
So this highlights two important facts:
1) You can do pretty much whatever you want. Obviously, you’ll never be able to fly, or run at the speed of a train, or actually enjoy the taste of horseradish, but within the realm of physical possibility, the world is your oyster.
2) You simply don’t want to be a surgeon.
These lead to one crucial all-encompassing fact when it comes to your resolutions: We don’t know what we want until we accept what we’ll have to do (and sacrifice) to get it.
I’ve noticed we tend to get all gung ho about our broad goals and resolutions, and we say really stupid things like, “I’ll do anything to make it happen!” before we really sit down and think about what the hell “anything” means.
I think this might be why we fail over and over and over. It’s not that we can’t do whatever we want. It’s that we’re ill-prepared to actually work through what getting what we want really entails.
We like the idea of looking better, but we temporarily ignore the whole “eating mostly green leaves, which means specifically not eating cupcakes and cheese and cheesy cupcakes. We respond to that knowledge internally with a nice, “Yeah yeah, whatever,” instead of internalizing, “Okay, well that’s going to suck, and I’m going to hate it, and I’m going to do it anyway.”
We don’t fully accept the sacrifice, so then when the time comes, we’re not prepared to make it. As a result, because we don’t know what we’ll actually have to do in order to achieve our resolutions and become the people we want to become, I think it’s fair to say the following: We don’t actually know what we want.
So what do we do about this?
Lay Out Every Detail of Your Resolution
Our core problem is a lack of awareness. We just barge into our resolutions with our dicks in our hand, and so we’re unable to catch whatever the resolution is about to throw at us.
So we must counteract that by making ourselves as aware as humanly possible. So first off is figuring out your resolutions. Feel free to go big. Don’t stop yourself, or discourage yourself. Write out what you really want.
…or excuse me–everything that you think you want. These are your Resolution Nominees, and it’s award season, baby. They only become resolutions once they make it through the next step.
So here’s what I think could work next: For every nominee, write out everything it will take–everything you’ll have to put up with, every sacrifice you’ll have to make, every piece of kale you’ll have to swallow–all of it.
Look through every resolution on your list, including your list of sacrifices and tasks involved with it, and decide what sacrifices are worth making, what annoying tasks are worth doing. Put yourself in the frame of mind of having to actually get up early to go to the gym, and in the feeling of not having another cigarette, and in the feeling of not seeing your girlfriend*, or your TV, or your Oreos as much as you used to. Fully understand what you’re doing.
*Your hand.
And then, finally, name your Resolutions. They’ll be so honored. They’ll thank their mothers, and God, and they’ll make some awkward political speech that everyone feels the need to applaud but is also kind of exhausting.
Sorry, that got off track. Point being: agree to your terms, and set your resolutions.
Isn’t This Discouraging?
You might be thinking, “Won’t this discourage me from getting started? Won’t seeing all of the things I have to do stop me from even trying to lose weight?”
I mean, I guess…maybe if you suck ass.
The reality is that it will only stop people from starting resolutions they would have failed at anyway. If you see the work in front of you and your first thought is “fuck that,” then you were always going to fail at that.
With your real resolutions–the ones actually worth going for–this allows you to fully see them ahead of you. It allows you to feel real confidence–not fake hypeman-in-your-own-head bullshit that wears off instantly. This method isn’t you looking in the mirror and calling yourself a badass, and then thirty seconds into your first day going, “Running is hard!” This allows you to see where your real priorities are, and to act them out knowing what you really want.
And perhaps more importantly, it allows you to let go of the resolutions you’ve been holding onto as theoretical possibilities for way too long. It allows you to look at becoming a multi-millionaire, or an Instagram model, or a brain surgeon, and simply say, “Nah, fuck that. I’d rather start a home garden.” It frees you from the prison of jealousy and envy, and allows your true desire to make your decisions.
You can do anything. But when you’re deciding what to do, try to actually know what the hell that means.
