I’ve never been someone who sets New Year resolutions.
Resolutions generally mean committing to some behaviour that you plan to do differently for the entire year.
And they’re wildly unsuccessful.
I worked at a gym for several years through university and undoubtedly, the gym suddenly became very busy on January 1st with all of us who made a resolution to “get fit”. Membership sales would skyrocket and it was hard to find an open treadmill. By Feb 1st, it was always back to its usual levels of activity…
One month.
That’s often all it takes for us to fall off our resolutions.
In fact, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail before February!
I can fully understand why these things don’t work. Knowing you won’t accomplish your resolution for a full year isn’t terribly motivating. Regardless of whether you put in minimal or maximal effort in the first 3 months of the year, you’re still 9 months away from achieving success. Ugh.
Instead, I set goals at the start of the year to help boost my motivation.
Goals, unlike resolutions, have a defined end that you expect to achieve. You are accomplishing a thing, not changing a behaviour. You can check it off when complete and generally the harder you work, the faster you’ll achieve it.
Let’s look at an example.
Let’s say I want to become a runner.
Resolution: “I want to run a combined 15k per week.”
This might keep me motivated for the first few weeks of the year, but soon the early excitement starts to wear off. It begins to feel like a chore. A chore I don’t have time for or interest in doing for that matter.
But.
Goal: “This year, I want to run a half marathon.”
Driven by the early hit of motivation, I’d likely sit down in the first couple weeks of the year to look into races in my area. I’ll pick one, register myself for it, and start to build a plan for what my training will need to look like in order to achieve my goal.
I might start out week one running 2km, three times a week, and I’ll slowly build up from there.
Because my focus is on being able to run 21.1km at one time, I’m focused on increasing my distance with each run. It keeps me motivated not only to get back out on the trails but once I’m out there, pushes me to run one more km than the week before. Unlike with the resolution, I’m driven each week with a new challenge to push myself further.
In this case, the (literal) finish line also comes with a hard deadline. A date by which one of two things will happen. I will either complete the race and walk away feeling proud and accomplished, or I’ll have spent time, money, and effort only to drop out halfway through the race which leaves me feeling ashamed and upset with myself.
Harsh, I know.
But that’s why I’m going to work my butt off to make sure I hit my goal.
Generally, with goals, it pays to put in the hard work upfront. More work upfront allows you to either A) achieve the goal faster and/or B) achieve it with more ease. I know that if I can put 20k in this week compared to last weeks 15km, I’m increasing my stamina which will help me get to my 21km goal faster, with more ease. I want to go into that race feeling as prepared as I can, having given myself the best chance for success.
Here’s the thing.
It’s not that resolutions are bad. They just aren’t particularly helpful.
If you like to set them, go for it. But the chances of you actually following through will multiply if you also set goals alongside your resolutions.
Resolution: “I want to become a better dessert chef”
Not particularly specific, or inspiring.
Goals: “I want to serve the perfect creme brule to my friends,” and “I want to take a pastry class through the local cooking college.”
The small amount of effort you’ll put in to set goals will increase your likelihood of succeeding more than you can imagine.
This year, like every other, I set goals, not resolutions.
Want to know what they were? Check out my goals for 2020 here.