New Goals

My gym has been amazingly full the past few days. Has yours? Don't worry, it won't last. There's a weekly version of this, too. Every Monday, the place is hopping. By Wednesday, it's just the old regulars.

In the opening days and weeks of a new year, we often allocate special energy to setting new goals. But then, a month or two later, it's back to normal, all too often. Why do so many of our New Year's Resolutions fade away?

Too many of us think we have new goals when we just have new fantasies. A fantasy is a figment of the imagination. I have a fantasy of lying in a hammock in Key West, perpetually. But it's not a real desire, not something that, when I actually think it through, I would want at all.

A desire is something stronger than a fantasy. Philosophers call it an inclination of the appetites, broadly speaking. It has some level of inner urgency to it. We feel a pull or a push toward anything that we actually desire. It isn't just an idle dream.

A goal is something very different. A real goal is a commitment of the will. The problem with many New Year's Resolutions is that they're fantasies, or desires, but not real goals. There's no commitment. And that's why they fade so quickly.

A commitment is a firm decision that has the quality of inner resilience. It can't easily be defeated. It's a motivated choice with renewable energy behind it, because of the values it embodies and that are therefore at stake. A commitment rides the wave of those values. And they are what will carry it on.

So if you've set new goals in the new year, and feel yourself wavering, ask whether you merely have a fantasy, or a desire, or have a real commitment, a choice based on values that you hold near and dear. Fantasies and desires can generate goals, guided by values, and they can support our goals, if we use them well. But they can't replace real goals.

Remember the importance of commitment. And I'll see you in the gym for a long time to come.

Planning for 2015

Ok, it's December 8 and people are already preparing for 2015. They're getting a running start on the new year. How about you?

Here's part of an email I got a few days ago, one that made my morning glow more than it was already glowing. A highly successful individual in financial services wrote to me:

I’m currently rolling up my sleeves and working on my 2015 Business Plan and always reread “The Art of Achievement” at the end of the year to help me solidify my thinking and my plan. I would like to order the DVD. Thanks for the instructions.

Wow. A book of mine that was published more than a decade ago, The Art of Achievement, this correspondent reads every year before completing a new business plan for the coming twelve months. That's very gratifying.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why would anyone read a particular book every year?" Steve Jobs did. So do many others. The great scholar and popular Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, once said that a book that isn't worth reading twice wasn't worth reading once. But why The Art of Achievement? It's all about new adventures. It's about making the most of our inner resources as we set outer goals. It's based on the wisdom of the great thinkers about the sort of success that we really want in our lives. It arose from a lot of work, over many years, and I'm so glad it's doing good in people's lives.

So, if you want some wisdom for the coming year, think about joining my correspondent, and consult the great philosophers of the past on what it will take to make this new year count. It doesn't have to be through one of my books. Go snag The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, or the essays of Seneca, or The Portable Emerson. Or if you do want my own guided tour through many of them, go look at the ebook, The 7 Cs of Success, which will take you through the greatest who pondered success. The best practical philosophers of the past knew what you and I will need to make the future count.