Is your New Year Resolution Dangerous?

While everyone thinks that improving yourself is great, sometimes improvement becomes a lousy trade-off of qualities between the current You and the person you want to become. 

Choosing the Resolution - Don't be an extreme

The point of making resolutions is to change yourself. But first, you need to take a hard look at all the things you may be losing in pursuit of your goal.

There was once a great warrior who was leading an expedition to conquer a kingdom. The kingdom was beyond a range of rocky mountains, which had to be crossed by him & his army before he could wage the war. The warrior was extremely passionate about his fight, and to conquer the kingdom.

He mounted on his horse, and roared in front of his army marching towards the mountains. The road would take days, but he was so exhilarated to reach his destination that no obstacle mattered to him.

All he saw was his destination.

He covered a distance of 5 days in 3, without stopping. Finally, descending from the final mountain, he could see the kingdom against which he had to wage a war. The time had come, the moment had arrived to... but wait! 

As he looked back to command his army to attack, he was shocked. His entire army was reduced to a fourth of its original strength. And the war hadn't even begun yet! He saw no elephants, whose thumps used to make the ground thunder. He saw no archers, arrows of whom blinded the sky. Half of his horsemen hadn't made it. All of them were left behind and couldn't keep up with the pace of his fast horse! The warrior, in his passion to reach the destination forgot about the various parts of his army. And now, when he reached his destination, he didn't have enough strength!

You are the warrior - a soul with a mind. The army is the set of all your qualities, the people who support you, the skills that define you and all the things that interest you. The kingdom is your ambition. Of course, you need to be there, and you, the warrior, will be there, but will your army be there too? 

5 years ago, I took the decision - to march towards a kingdom - IIT JEE. It was an amazing experience meeting failure, I felt a lot of things. In the process to run towards that destination, I let go of many of my interests, many of my friends and people who were close to me. By the end of the 2 years, I wasn't the same person who began the journey. All those things, those people defined my happiness and completeness. Clinging to one extreme of life made no sense! 

Thus, resolving something that takes away parts of your life that define you is definitely a bad, bad resolution! 

All the hard workers, improvers and optimists might have already chosen their New Year's Resolution by now, and I'm sure are on their way to make it happen this year!
If you haven't chosen a resolution yet, it is extremely important that you do choose one.
Not because it's a tradition, but it signifies that you want to improve, and you're actually taking an action on it. In fact, smaller resolutions should be made every single day.

However, affirming something that you're going to do FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR is a tremendously tough task that you've undertaken. So you should be proud of yourself already!

How to follow the Resolution for a long time?

Here are some tips:

If you want to reach fast, run alone. If you want go far, walk together.

Find a friend/family member who shares a similar resolution or something related to yours. If it's going to the gym, go together. This gives you both a helpful advantage to continue your habit for a long time. There will be times when you shall be bored or might think of discontinuing the streak that you've maintained. Alone, you shall only have to convince yourself; but in a group, there will always be people to motivate you.
In addition, no one minds a healthy competition! Seeing people close to you working and excelling will periodically give you some motivational bursts that make you push your limits. The grass always seems greener on the other side. Both your friend and you can trick your mind into this kind of motivation!

Live in the Moment

All you should care about is completing the present challenge. Don't worry about how long you can carry this resolution. Don't even dream! For example, if your goal is to maintain a diary everyday, focus on writing the diary TODAY. A common mistake that we make is thinking about maintaining the habit in the future too. One might think, "Yeah it's good that I'm writing the diary today, but will I be able to keep up this habit during the entire month?"
Stop doing that! Don't justify yourself, or debate with your mind on this counter question. Just focus on the smallest closest goal possible.
Planning is way different than Focussing

That being said, all the best for choosing/amending your New Year Resolution and may you complete it wholeheartedly!

The biggest changes are made by the smallest steps.