If you made a New Year’s resolution and haven’t yet “fallen off the wagon”, congratulations. You are part of the “9% club”!

Awe yes, New Year’s resolutions. In theory, they seem fantastic. According to a recent report the top 3 resolutions are related to finances, fitness/exercise, and healthy eating. Add to that, for 2024, 58% of adults in America set a New Year’s resolution. So, we can expect health spending in the US to plummet and the GDP to skyrocket. However, the reverse is happening.  Healthcare spending is growing at a faster rate than the GDP pre-pandemic. Something has gone amiss.

Americans arguably have the greatest advantage when it comes to “succeeding”. Yet, it appears most Americans fall short when it comes to personal goals.

Is it a lack of discipline, or willpower? Maybe.

Or,

Maybe, we were designed for more. More than “self-improvement”. A strong argument can be made that “success” in life and in neurologic recovery counter-intuitively requires us to flip the lens……..

The outliers. They always fascinate me and force me to do a double-take. Why do some people seem to “succeed” and others don’t?

Enter “Jenny”, (name changed for confidentiality). Jenny was in her early forties, married with a young child when she suffered a stroke leaving her completely paralyzed on one side of her body. She was completely dependent on her spouse. Unfortunately, shortly after her stroke, her spouse (and primary caregiver) unexpectedly passed away leaving her to now care for her child…alone.

Fast forward several years to my fortunate encounter with Jenny as she teaches me, the therapist, all the ins and outs of learning how to cook, clean, bath a small child, and drive…… with one functional arm, a half functional leg, and a significant visual field cut (imagine a patch over half of one eye). Her most brilliant tip was placing bricks on her range to hold her Wok steady. There are things school just can’t teach.

If you were to tell me Jenny’s story, I wouldn’t believe you. Especially the driving. She concedes the “driving goal” was the most difficult. Over a year of practice with an occupational therapist and several denials from the state, (not because she failed the driving test, but because they wouldn’t allow her to take it), she finally got her driver’s license back. (Disclaimer, safety was always top of mind as she would be driving with her small child in the car. It is important to note, that she voluntarily paid to do extra therapy and had several professionals test her before driving alone).

Long story short, Jenny is an outlier.

So what gives? Why do most of us fail to succeed at the seemingly impossible?

Let’s first unpack “desire”. Desire is to wish or long for. Evolutionarily speaking, desire is necessary for survival. Desire allows humans to seek out food for sustenance, sex for reproduction, “material” for shelter/protection, and relationships for preservation of the community. And thus, we can ensure that humans will continue to survive and multiply.

And if you are human, you know that fulfillment of the above stated “desires” will result in temporary peace, happiness, joy…etc.

So, “desire” is innate (hardwired from birth). And necessary for survival.

Add to that, acting on a desire to fulfill a need makes us “feel good”. The reward is also necessary so we will repeat the behavior. Also critical for survival.

And thus we have our first “wrinkle” in the utopian fabric of human evolution…..

Joy, peace, happiness, (insert positive emotion) can easily become the shinny object. And thus emerges a human existence in continuous pursuit of “happy emotions”.

And devoid of the most important component of our existence….. survival of the “community” over the “individual”. Yes, “me” versus “we”.

And here is where my thought process gets a little tangled. What if someone, maybe you, are sick or disabled? Isn’t this the whole point? A situation where the community needs to come around the individual? Where an individual who was previously “we” focused, must rightfully become “me” focused?

On the one hand we have a “hard drive” (an innate desire) to serve our community.  Those wiser than I might argue it is the most important.

“When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die” Eleanor Roosevelt

And on the other hand, sickness, injury, and disease can leave an individual “needing” the selflessness of others.

Yet, serving others fulfills an innate desire. Add to that, the number of studies that demonstrate a strong correlation between service and “success” in life.

And I can’t help but think about some of the great leaders of past who credit their outward focus for their ability to endure hardships. Not to mention, change the trajectory of humanity…

“Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself” Martin Luther King Jr.

How did Jenny succeed and become an outlier?  She had to flip the lens. With a young, dependent child, her story couldn’t be about her.  And as difficult as it might be to read this (and for me to write this), your story and your success can’t be about you.

With all that said, are New Year’s resolutions “bad”? The honest answer is no. For many people, the New Year can signify a time to reflect on the previous year, re-assess the road ahead, and adjust course appropriately. But for the majority, “self-improvement goals” take the focus off “we” and instead zoom in on “me”.

Viktor Frankle was a holocaust survivor who credits his survival, in part, to his ability to think outside of himself during his 3 years in the concentration camps. In his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, he writes about how he was able to endure the beatings and the starvation by thinking about his wife.  He also channeled his thoughts toward re-writing his manuscript on logotherapy which was seized when entering the camp. If you haven’t already read his book, A Man’s Search For Meaning, strongly recommend. (you can also listen to it on audible).

So in light of his story, I think this excerpt is meaningful (pun intended 😊)

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Yes, it is a good idea for us to ask what will help us (as individuals) to grow into better humans for the brief time we have on this earth.

However, Andy Stanley presents the idea of maybe asking a better question in the New Year…. “what in the world breaks my heart that I can be in service to?”

Maybe then, and only then does physical healing occur as the “unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself” Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor, psychiatrist.