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Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome back to this channel and it is your girl Nikki again.
Well, it definitely feels like a million years since last time I released content and I hope that you guys don't miss me too much. But anyway, I am back here continuing to make content for myself and also to share it with every one of you guys.
And recently, I am finally not so much occupied with my work, so I have got some time, I have got some inspiration, and I have also got some new topics that I would like to cover here in my channel. So yeah, many more episodes are coming soon.
Okay, so now that it is approaching the end of 2023 and as the festive vibe gets up in the air, many of us would be excited and start to make wishes or new year resolutions, right? I understand that it's a way for us to kind of dance with a vibe to celebrate a new beginning. But if you're serious with the results,
you probably will feel disappointed with the results because most likely those changes you describe in your resolutions never actually happen I mean if you have ever made a list of new year resolutions
You must know what I'm talking about, right? So today's episode is going to be dedicated to analyzing this phenomenon, the ins and outs of it, and then providing some alternative ways for us to adapt if we really want to make things happen. So now let's dive right into it. If December never ends...
Okay, so new year resolutions.
Just now I searched it online and it says that we need to make resolutions in different aspects such as your work-life balance, personal finance, development, interpersonal relationships, etc. And also the online source suggested that people should make these goals as specific as possible.
For example, regarding interpersonal relationships, you can't just create a goal that says "I need to keep a good relationship with my parents", but rather you should put down more specific entries, like "I need to call my parents 3 times a week, each call lasting for at least 20 minutes",
Seems pretty easy to make this list, right? So right around the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year, we can make a long list specifying how many times we need to go to the gym, how often we should hang out with friends and family, and what specific skills we need to develop in the new year and so on.
But unfortunately, you know, the thing with goal setting is as our willpower diminishes day by day, soon we might find ourselves back to square one. You know, we seem unable to fulfill those ambitious or even unambitious goals we have promised ourselves to attain.
So the real situation is, you know, individuals' behaviors are mostly not determined by their free will. Although free will sometimes can help us break free of a situation. But I mean, mostly, we are just trapped in a system that dictates our behaviors. So unless the system is actively changed by you, your long-term behaviors do not actually tend to change at all.
For example, in many Western countries, they have this "Gem Culture" where becoming a Gem buddy is relatively easy. I mean, you can find many Gems just around your neighborhood and once getting off work, many people tend to go to the Gem and therefore finding a Gem mate is relatively easy for them, you know? But here in China, we don't have that culture, right? We have the "Guang Chang Wu Culture"
So senior citizens here in China usually join the square dancing group. So what I'm trying to say here is that we're all but the product of our environment or a system that we're in. So when we want to attain a goal, we should not just focus our attention on the goal itself or on our personal willpower.
But rather, we should try to build a system that will make our behavior relatively easier and more natural. For example, if you want to have outdoor run every day, then the first thing to consider is to move away from Beijing to someplace south, like Guangzhou or Shenzhen, because, you know, Beijing's cold, dry, cruel winter is going to make the outdoor run an excruciating experience.
And if you want to go to the gym more often, the best choice is to find a company that has a gym and also to wear sports clothes to work. And then after work, you can seamlessly work out without any extra friction. Of course, my example here might seem a little extreme, but I think you can get the gist, right? Create a system that encourages the behavior that aligns with your goal.
And now I would like to point out another factor that stops you from reaching your goal. That is your physical state.
I mean, this one is quite easy to understand, right? If you feel so sick, so exhausted, or burn out and stuff, you're not likely to initiate a new project that will guide you to where you want to be. So we have to protect our physical health. I mean, seriously, protect it. Like from the very basics, like your nutrition and your sleep.
And as for how to optimize your nutrition and sleep, please just go back to the point we have discussed previously and think about what kind of system you can create to facilitate making better choices in nutrition and sleep. For example, you know, I personally need to get dairy products out of my life because I have lactose intolerance.
But I pretty much love dairy products because they're so versatile and so yummy. So what should I do? Instead of forcing myself not to crave dairy products, I created a system for me to have easy access to non-dairy products. Like, you know, I bought a lot of almond milk and juicing machines and stuff. And in this case, every morning I could feed myself with these drinks first.
And as I am not hungry, I won't be craving any dairy products at all. So this has worked very well when I tried to quit coffee too. So you understand what I mean by creating this system, right? And finally...
I'd like to touch on the issue of mental state as well, which is yet another key element that determines whether or not we could get things done. You guys know that in the current world, a lot of us might suffer from mental problems like anxiety, depression, self-doubt and stuff. Primarily because our East Asian culture advocates the notion of the best way to live life.
Namely, going to a nice university, landing a decent job, marrying a nice person and never getting divorced, and having kids that can repeat the previous steps, etc. And therefore, once we are deviating from the perfect template, we might criticize ourselves for not being a good person.
To make matters worse, the current social media thing is getting in the way too. I mean, we see those young and beautiful boys and girls seemingly having everything. And then we consciously or unconsciously compare ourselves to them. And the result is usually that we attack ourselves for not being good enough.
So the anecdote to this situation is to always tell yourself that I am enough. Remember the movie Barbie, where Ken just told everyone that he was Ken-nough? Actually, that gave me a good laugh because it was indeed super funny. But the message was so damn right. I mean, we are perfectly enough creatures, right?
Perfectly going through what we have to go through and perfectly learning and achieving what we have to learn and achieve. This probably is getting a little philosophical, but simply put, life has no right or wrong. And also in the journey of experiencing our finite, unique life, nobody is not enough.
So if sometimes a bad mental situation is getting in our way, we can just take a break and tell ourselves we are already enough for everything and nothing is worth having us doubt ourselves. So once there is no self-doubt consuming our energy, we could soon get back on track and do what we do.
Okay, so now I guess it is approaching the end of this episode. The short takeaway is that New Year resolutions don't have to fail.
Instead of focusing on the behaviors themselves, we should actually try to create a system that makes our desired behaviors easier. And always, always keep protecting our mental and physical health. They are all that we have after all, actually. So here I hope that you guys, all my dear listeners, can set and fulfill your goals in 2024, no matter how ambitious and how wild they are. You so much deserve it.
This is Nikki. Thank you very much for staying with me and supporting this channel. And I'm gonna see you guys next round.