Under Pressure – How to Successfully Survive 2012

Noel Feans' photos via Getty Images via Flickr

Few days of Holidays, New Year’s Eve and all the celebration of the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 is over we can start planning. Some of us will try to set few New Year’s resolutions. I guess some will even create a long list of things to do in 2012.
Beginning of the 2012 – we might feel a little big under pressure, we need a good plan and we need it NOW!

I get it that beginning of every year is a good time to set a plan what to do, think of some New Year’s resolutions, etc. And not only we know about that but all brands know that too – check all TV commercials.

… but so what?

We like to create long list thinking that it help us to achieve all those goals. We even feel excited checking that list from time to time – thinking “wow, that’s a great list”. But this is just a list, nothing more and nothing less. Ok, so we decided to do something about that list – so it’s not any longer just a list because we added an action to it. Unfortunately there are few problems:

• poor plan of action – instead of setting goals and planning how to achieve them we just have a general picture of what we want to do/get
• lack of perseverance – it’s not easy to get over difficulties which can occur during whole year
• procrastination – that’s another obstacle. We know we’ve got that great plan, we set goals, we feel we are ready and suddenly week after week we procrastinate. Week become month, month become 6 months, and 12 months later we’re stuck with absolutely nothing, well we have a knowledge that we did not achieve what we planned.

What exactly is “a new years resolution?”
It’s a “to do” list for the first week of January. /by Annie Taylor Lebel/

So what to do this time to finally get what we want and successfully survive 2012? Nothing unusual just:

Many times we just play safe, and we want to do exactly what we know, we use our experience and we are too scared to try something new. Maybe it’s time to try something new, maybe it’s time to take that chance? Do we want to repeat all those mistakes we made last year and because of what we couldn’t achieve some of our goals? We know there are many ways to get the same result so why we are choosing always the same way? – right, because we know ONLY that way, well so why not to try something new? Maybe it’s time to stop be a monkey?.

Lets check the Five Monkeys Experiment. Harlow’s classical Animal Psychology experiment In the experiment 5 monkeys are locked in a room with bananas hanging high on a rope from the roof and a step ladder. The room is fitted with sprinklers that will spray the monkeys with cold water if any of them touch the ladder. Before too long, one monkey approaches the ladder and upon contact all five monkeys are sprayed with cold water. After a couple more of them try climbing the ladder, they soon learn to prevent other monkeys from making the same attempt. After some time, one of the original monkey is replaced with a new one. When the new monkey approaches the ladder, it is attacked by the other monkeys
and prevented from touching the ladder.Then another original monkey is replaced and the 4 other monkeys prevent the next new one from touching the ladder. This is repeated until all 5 original monkeys have been replaced. Although none of the replacement monkeys have been sprayed with cold water, they all avoid the ladder. The reason they don’t climb the ladder is because they believe that is just the way things are done around here.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/thechive/videos/904/

Maybe it’s time to stop acting like those monkeys and ask a question: What can I do differently and not just comply blindly or just repeat old mistakes.

…so what’s your plan for 2012?