So, here we are, resolution time. ‘Course, we’ve been there before, and we all know how those prior resolutions fared. There isn’t one of us who doesn’t know about something he ought to work on and improve, whether it be gym time, weight issues, relationship issues, work/personal time balance. What gets in our way? Why doesn’t it happen, at least for many of us?
In Stephen Covey’s well-known book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People the seventh habit is titled “Sharpen the Saw.” What he means, of course, is that any furniture maker or finish carpenter needs to have good tools to do good work, and from time to time it’s necessary to just stop working and give your tools routine maintenance in order for you to move forward and keep doing your best work. If you don’t stop dead in your tracks and take care of your tools, getting a good outcome that you can be proud of is impossible. Although that seems to be an obvious thing, too many of us fail to make it happen. We, each of us, are our own tools and each of us would feel more of our own dynamism if we were able to move forward with the resolutions we’ve come up with for ourselves, whatever those might be. We all know a self-confident guy who’s noticed when he walks into a room; he’s the one who has that dynamism we’re all capable of getting for ourselves.
Nike, the shoe manufacturing company, is named after the Greek goddess Nike, portrayed as Winged Victory; the most famous statue depicting her is at the top of a staircase in the Louvre. It came from the prow of a ship dedicated to honor the naval victory of the city-state of Rhodes. Nike’s hand was held to her mouth as she called out the song of the Greek gods celebrating victory. Her gown flows in the wind as the ship sails forward. The Nike Corporation’s world-recognized ad slogan “Just Do It” has been considered one of the outstanding ad campaigns of the 20th century; it has its own display at the Smithsonian. For many of us, “just do it” is the watchword (or watch phrase) we need. What Stephen Covey can teach us is that if we expect to move forward we simply need to take care of ourselves. It doesn’t matter if you feel too tired to get up early today to head to the gym, or whether you’d rather do something else at 6:00 pm than go to the gym, if you want to move forward and be a success for yourself, “just do it.”
Dr. Atkins reminded people in his original book on the Atkins Diet that you can eat any food on the diet; there are just some foods you can eat only twice a year. You decide when it’s that special day for you to eat your own personal nemesis foods.
Whatever your resolution may have been for 2011, just do it! It helps some people to actually write the words out, to post them where you’ll see them either first thing in the morning or over and over during the day in order to put your own agenda item for yourself in your own face. Accept that the issue is yours, that you own it. Take it in your own two hands and make the change happen. A sign of intelligence is accepting the fact that if you keep doing things the way you have been doing them you’ll continue to have the outcome you’ve had so far. The good news is that you’re worth it! You deserve the right to sail forward on whatever your resolution might be. Make a change. Get ready to hear the song of Winged Victory. Reach for the dynamism. Just do it.
Dr. Perry Karfunkel is a physician in the Department of General Internal Medicine at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, and the vast majority of his patients are men. He is a general Internist and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is a past President of the Massachusetts Society of Internal Medicine. He is a member of the Men’s Health Committee of the Massachusetts Medical Society and was Vice-Chair of that committee in recent years. He holds an MD from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Yale. He is also particularly interested in the issue of barriers to men taking care of themselves in ways they themselves know they should.
