Thoughts about New Year's resolution

Based on the messages from the video with Tony Robbins I recommended a few days ago (also below), I think I now have a clearer idea of why I feel a need to improve my academic life. By honestly presenting how I figured out what is lacking, why it is lacking, and how I am starting to approach the problem with an embryonic plan, my hope is to inspire you to do the same in your lives, and really want to make a New Year’s resolution this year, and feel that you can and will see it through!  


This video was meant to address the difficulty all of us find in keeping our New Year’s resolution, but it really applies widely to all kinds of decisions about making a lasting improvement in your life, i.e. improvements that go beyond just one year, that become your new standards.

I don’t think I can do it much justice by trying to summarise in my words. I strongly recommend that you watch it through, even if you are not so keen on this whole New Year’s thing… especially if you are not so keen on it!

But if you are more of a reader than a listener, hopefully you will be able to follow my thoughts even if you don’t watch the video…

Argh, enough chit-chat! Let’s do this!!

… no, seriously. But I will get on with it.

The main breakthrough for me was when the message helped me finally figure out why I have had such a hard time finding motivation to do the work. I am sharing this here because I suspect I am far from alone in having those feelings.

My main source of friction is probably that I have had a change of identity from a ‘hard-worker’ to a ‘social person’. I used to be able to study all through the day, mainly because I had nothing better to do. This made me define myself as a ‘hard worker’. But, about four years ago, I started to hang out with a couple of wonderful friends, with whom I wanted to spend time with so much that I began to contradict this basic nature of getting home after school and sit down and study. Gradually, I changed priorities. (This is what I thought had happened, up until recently when I realised that this change happened without any real personal conflict, so I begin to suspect that my priorities were friends-over-work all along, but I just didn’t know it at first!)

Not implying you cannot be both hard-working and social, which would be ideal, I feel that in my case it was a one-way transition: a change of character rather than an expansion of character. I think this is how I have been limited. And I don’t think I can revert to being only a hard worker, at the expense of socialising (not without inner conflict, which we all know is destructive to the soul). Therefore, I must simply expand. I need to start to see myself as someone capable of enjoying work and fun.

For so long, I have expected the work to become more enjoyable. But half-way through my course, I know this is not going to happen. The other option is to flip some kind of switch inside that will enable me to make the work enjoyable.

A large part of me feels that something is wrong with the world when one must put in effort not to be disillusioned when working on what used to be his/her favourite subject. But another part of me is highly focused on solving problems rather than griping about how inconvenient they are, and now I need that side to take over!

So, how can I make the work more enjoyable? The texts we have to read will be the same. What can I do to make them less boring? 

Well… I don’t know yet… and I think that is something each one of us needs to find out for him-/herself.

Reflecting back, I think I usually enjoy work most when I somehow engage in it, put some energy into it. Few of the things we have been assigned so far have moved me to engagement, so maybe it is not surprising that I found them hard to enjoy. Some assignments may have required me to input effort, but I can’t think of any that motivated me to do it.

Anyway, I realise that I am spinning off the rails massively right now… and the eye soreness is coming back… I hate to interrupt posts mid-way, but I think it is the best thing to do. And I might even consider breaking this pattern of publishing every day. There is a difference between being strong and persistent and being foolishly stubborn. The pressure (I put on myself) to keep publishing, while it is not good for my health, may have compromised the quality of a number of posts so far, and although I am definitely not a perfectionist, I am a sucker for quality.

I will be back.