DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The other day I heard a radio commercial open with this line: “Have your New Year’s Resolutions gotten the better of you?” I flipped off the stereo with disgust. They have not, I thought.

I guess most people make resolutions with no real intention of acting on them. I feel no sad, self-pitying camaraderie with such people, nor with vendors who appeal to radio listeners’ feelings of failure and disillusionment in order to market their products.

Our society conditions people to think of January as a new beginning. Why not take advantage of it? There’s not a person on this planet who wouldn’t like to make a change, to do more of some thing or less of some other thing. Sure, we could all make changes any day of the year. But why not make some now? You’ve probably been thinking about it anyway.

I make resolutions every year. I try to keep the list short — to pick two or three items I feel strongly about. I’m somewhat successful, although not as successful as I’d like; the big items usually get done and the minor ones get forgotten. Part of my problem, I now realize, is a lack of strategy. Simply wanting something isn’t enough to make it so. One also needs a plan. And more than that.

It was with these half-formed thoughts that I listened to an “e-seminar” by Anthony Robbins. The timing was ideal, for his topic was “New Year, new results.” During his intro he said the same thing I’ve been thinking:

There’s a unique aspect to the New Year. The New Year is completely artificial … [but] it gives us a chance to start fresh. We make it up in our heads because we could do this any day of our lives, but my view is, as long as we as a culture have this hypnosis that says, “it’s a new year, I’ve got a chance to start fresh, to make it the way I want it,” why not take advantage of that?

Why not, indeed?

The great thing about Robbins is that he always provides a plan of attack. As I wrote once before, you cannot follow his advice and fail to take action. This is so much better than beginning every resolution with “I really should do this…”

Robbins’ presentation (a 75-minute frenetic monologue) has been archived for playback over the Web. His seven-step process for “maximizing” this new year has been made available as a PDF document, a worksheet you can print and follow whether or not you spend the time listening to his speech.

I would link to it all from here, but I’m not sure whether this content was intended for free access to the world. On the other hand, the invitation appears to have gone out to everybody on the anthonyrobbins.com mailing list, from where it was no doubt forwarded widely. And anybody could have called in to listen to the seminar over the phone. As a compromise I’ll do this: if you’re interested, send me an email and I’ll send the access info to you.