Mental Mastery

December 23, 2023

80-90% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by February. 

That means you’re probably one of them.

Everyone has goals for the new year. But few make it, and there’s a reason for that.

In today’s letter, I’ll explain to you the mindset that you need to stay committed to your goals for 2024.

New Year New Me

“New year new me” is a common phrase that you hear right at the start of every year but it quickly fades away within the first month. 

People follow the crowd of “new year new me” mentality but don’t realize that they are likely to fail for that reason alone. 

There isn’t a need to wait until a certain date to start something. It doesn’t change the significance of it. The calendar year is just a concept. There is no relative difference between December 1st and January 1st.

If you have the idea that you want to improve your life in some way, you should start right there. 

Having this mindset of putting things off until a certain date or until the new year so you can have a “clean slate” shows that this problem in your life doesn’t mean much to you. 

Once you put into your head this idea of changing for the better, resistance comes in and tries to block it. 

I’ve said before that resistance only comes when you want or need to do something beneficial for your life. 

It will take the form of fear, procrastination, and perfectionism. 

The longer you wait to start something, the more time you give yourself to doubt and overthink things. 

You’re going to be more likely to put things off even after the new year because you’re “still not ready yet”. 

And you might overindulge in something you shouldn’t in the time leading up to New Year’s, so you get that last bit of pleasure before you quit. Decreasing your willpower even further.

You can’t expect yourself to be disciplined in whatever you’re doing if you go at it with a sense of fear and doubt. 

You’ll never feel ready for some things, and January 1 isn’t going to change that. 

Group Motivation

The biggest reason why people fail their New Year resolutions is that they rely on group motivation.

When you decide to wait until everyone else changes to start yourself, it implies that you’re only doing it to fit in, rather than doing something to benefit your own life. 

Then when other people stop going to the gym or they stop working on their business, or whatever it is, you’re more likely to stop too, because it’s more sociably acceptable to give up when everyone else is doing it. 

The self-help industry and the fitness industry skyrocket in revenue this time of year because people like you have this idea that they want to change for the new year. 

My views will go up significantly this time of the year but as time goes on people stop improving so they stop watching the videos.

Gyms count on people giving up on their resolutions each year because it’s just more money for them. 

For Planet Fitness, it doesn’t matter whether you show up to the gym or not, as long as they get you to sign up for that contract, you’re in. So if you don’t go, then they still profit but you lose. Not to mention gyms require you to cancel your membership in person. And they know that people don’t want to deal with the shame of doing that, so most people will just have active subscriptions and not go.

Relying on plain motivation in general is just bad because you won’t be able to handle the problems that arise when you are chasing your goals. 

All it takes is some bad weather, maybe your blankets are a little too warm one morning, or you just don’t feel like it. And then you missed a day. Then the same thing happens again the next day, and then now it’s a habit. 

What about when things get rough? When you're working on your business, and you encounter a roadblock. That New Year's motivation won't be enough to get you through those hard times. 

You start with tons of motivation, but the moment something doesn’t go your way and you’re not prepared for it, you’ll give up.

Find Your Why

To stick to your goals, you need to understand them fully. 

Why do you want this? 

Is it a shallow goal? 

How did this desire form?

How much do I want this? 

If you don’t know why you’re doing something, you will crumble at the slightest inconvenience.  

A lot of people are going to prescribe you quick-fix solutions that will make it seem like you'll reach your goals sooner than what's possible. But in reality, nothing good comes from a quick-fix solution. It won't be enough to fix the deeper problem that lies within. 

Everyone is going into this New Year with expectations to change their life for the better. But most people are shallow.

Developing a philosophy for why you are doing something will create intrinsic reasons for you to keep going even when you are stagnating. 

I’ve said before: Wanting a Lamborghini isn’t going to give you the same drive as wanting to retire your mother will. 

Play The Long Game

Anything of value requires lots of development.

When we work towards a goal, the actions we take at the start seem to make no difference until we reach a breakthrough. 

Most people don’t have the patience for that breakthrough and this is one of the reasons we see so many people give up on their goals. 

We live in a society of instant gratification and immediate pleasure at our fingertips. 

You don’t feel resistance towards watching TV because it’s easy. You don’t even have to touch the remote anymore, netflix will play the next episode for you. 

But you will feel resistance towards your goals. So understanding how to play the long game or delayed gratification is necessary. 

In Atomic Habits, James Clear brings up this concept called the Plateau of Latent Potential and explains that the most powerful outcomes are usually delayed. 

In our minds, we think that we should be progressing in linearity with time but in reality, breakthroughs tend to come after lots of build-up of previous actions and habits. 

Since most of us aren’t aware of the effect of compounding results, it can be easy for us to fall into what’s called the valley of disappointment. The space between the start of your effort, and the breakthrough moment where you see the progress.

So for example. A lot of people have New Year’s resolutions to get in shape for the next year. But will likely get discouraged when they don’t see progress as quickly as they’d like, resulting in them giving up. 

When I say it like that you can see how this kind of thinking can affect your life as a whole. It makes it hard for you to see anything all the way through, instead opting for the more instantly gratifying things in life.

The people who adopt a delayed gratification mindset will make it through this valley of disappointment (January) and see the results of their efforts.

Sacrifice For Your Purpose

Whatever it is that you want to do going into 2024, is your current purpose. 

To fulfill that purpose, you need to align 100% of your life to it.

To align yourself with your purpose, you need to understand that it’s going to take sacrifice. Anything of value requires you to sacrifice the things that are going to get in the way. 

Think about your current purpose. Then think about that thing that might be worth sacrificing to get there but you don't want to. 

Maybe you need to sacrifice bad friends, junk food, social media, or video games. Whatever it is.

You probably have some idea of what that thing is. 

And your mind is making excuses trying to justify keeping it around. But you know the thing I’m talking about. If it was worth keeping around then you wouldn’t have thought about it when I started talking about sacrifices. 

“We must all suffer one of two pains: The pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.”-Jim Rohn.

Do you feel regretful of how you spent 2023? If so, you chose that pain. 

Now, you have a chance to choose which pain you will suffer this year. Choose wisely.

That is all for now, shorter letter today as I have been very busy working on some bigger projects I have coming out soon. Be on the lookout for some big stuff nearing the end of the year:) 

Make sure you check out my free 14 Days To Purpose course to build a journaling habit that will help you live more purposefully.

Have a great weekend, see ya. 

-Abraham