Learning Challenge | H.E.A.R.T. - Resolutions
(New Year's Resolutions. Web Source: flickr).
Everyone knows that New Year's Resolutions are easily made... and easily broken. Entering 2018, I boldly decided against making resolutions because I knew that I would not keep them and only disappoint myself. However, I ran across the article The Only Way To Keep Your Resolutions, and I couldn't help but click on it to find out more.
Originally, the secret ingredient to keeping resolutions was to utilize your very own will power. However, after years of continual cheating on diets and failure to go to the gym, researchers are now realizing that will power is much easier said than done. Furthermore, will power is NOT the secret to keeping resolutions throughout the year.
Unlike will power, the author of this article believes the secret is utilizing social emotions. Say what? Social emotions include things such as empathy and compassion, and these emotions can grant us patience or perseverance when needed. The way social emotions, unlike will power, work is that they help to keep our desires present but our desires for the future on a greater pedestal.
So how does this connect to resolutions? When you look at the grand scheme of life, you see that it wasn't the cake sent back, the extra trip to the gym, or the extra hour you studied. It's the relationships that you were able to maintain along the way through social emotions. So if relationships can be maintained for decades at a time through social emotions, why shouldn't resolutions?
I am so glad you looked at that article, Camryn! I am a fan of New Year's and and also of Resolutions, and of all the different articles I read this year about the whole dilemma of how to make/keep resolutions, that one was my favorite. And as you can probably guess, one of the reasons I try to build in social aspects to this class is exactly to promote that sense of support and togetherness, and so we can all take a sense of pride in each other's achievements in this class because we are all helping each other! All writers depend very much on the social aspect of writing, the feedback they get from others and the mutual commitment of writer and audience. Plus, it's just more fun this way!
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