-Brad Zomick
Every year, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions, hoping to spark positive change. The recurring themes each year include a more active approach to health and fitness, improved finances, and learning new things for personal and professional development.
Making resolutions, or goal setting, is like having your own personal cheerleader, rooting for you to succeed! When you set goals, you’re making a promise to yourself and your dreams. It’s all about being accountable and taking ownership of your actions. With goals in place, you create a structure that keeps you on track and motivated.
Deadlines and milestones become your trusty sidekicks, reminding you to stay focused and disciplined. By sticking to your plan and putting in the effort day in and day out, you develop habits that pave the way for your growth and success, whether it’s in your career or personal life.
Despite the best of intentions, once the glow of a fresh new year wears off, many people struggle to make good on their plans. According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, only 46% of people who made New Year’s resolutions were successful. That means over half of the people who set a goal for the new year will fail!
The study also involved non-resolvers, people who did not make a New Year’s resolution but had a goal they wanted to achieve that year. Only 4% of non-resolvers were successful at achieving their goals, a far bleaker result than those who did make a New Year’s resolution.
Naturally, we don’t want to be in the camp of folks who fail to achieve their aspirations and dreams for 2024, so we’ve put together an exhaustive plan for following through on your resolution.
Changing ingrained habits is no easy task, so before diving head-first into your New Year goals, it is important to take a step back and get ready for that impending change.
The first breakthrough in change is taking a personal inventory. Being that it’s the end of one year and the beginning of the next, it’s perfect timing to take stock of the past year’s accomplishments. Think about the following:
- What did I set out to do in the past year?
- Where did I make progress?
- Where didn’t I see progress?
Naturally, your resolution may focus on areas that lack progress, but don’t forget to savor the progress made and find some small way to celebrate. Those happy feelings are useful! If possible, try to associate them with an object or word related to your accomplishment.
You will want to keep upbeat with your new resolution, so you can use that positive association with last year’s accomplishments to remind you of those good feelings when you are feeling challenged.
You would be surprised how often people set goals that are not for themselves. These goals could be dictated to or coerced by a manager, spouse, or parental / peer pressure.
While it’s nice to have some external support, if you don’t share the same passion, the resolution has a small chance of succeeding and could even be dead on arrival.
To do this, you need to make sure the goal you set is important to you and only you and that there is value or benefit for you in achieving the goal. It is these two things that will provide the reason and willingness to take action. This is also known as motivation!
Thus, it’s a safe bet if your resolutions align with the following:
- Your goals
- Your priorities
- Your dreams
- Your aspirations
Not only should you align around your innermost desires, but you should also make sure the resolutions align with your top priorities. This will lead to a “must do” attitude.
If your goals are career-centric, like improving your Excel skills, creating your own professional development plan is a great way to stay motivated on the path toward your goal.
A common mistake in resolution-setting is having too many and spreading yourself too thin. We all want to learn 25 different languages, 15 new job skills, and eliminate 5 bad habits, but we are not superheroes. We only have so much attention span we can dedicate to self-improvement, so having too many resolutions is a great way not to achieve the many goals you have set out for yourself.
Thus, you should make a short list of resolutions that you can manage in the upcoming year. Knowing that short list of priorities is the hard part. The key here is understanding how to prioritize.
Here is an exercise that you can undertake to help you figure out what is most important in your life. All you need is a post-it pad, a pen, and a wall.
- Write anything you want to accomplish for self-improvement purposes on a post-it
- Each post-it only gets one discreet tactic
- Place each post-it on the wall
- Go crazy – use as many post-its as possible
- Group together similar post-its
- Place the topics you feel strongly about at the top of the wall
- Put the topics you feel “meh” about on the bottom
- Spend a lot of time thinking about the order of the first 3-5 post-it (groups)
As you might suspect, #8 is the most time-consuming because it will determine what resolutions you are going to take on this year.
The final piece of the puzzle here is knowing your limitations and personal bandwidth. With that in mind, you should focus on your top priorities while balancing how much attention you can honestly devote to a resolution.
Final thought: It’s better to tackle one resolution well than multiple resolutions poorly.