Why Your New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Matter

New year new you

With each new year comes new possibilities, new beginnings, and new opportunities to keep our promises both old and new. People often wait for the clock to strike 12 am on January 1 to commit to their resolutions – exercise, make more money, be a better person, etc.

The truth about resolutions

Yet, there’s nothing special or effective about waiting for the New Year to get started. Whether it’s January 1 or May 21, why not start today, why not start right now? The truth is the longer we wait, the longer it takes to achieve success.

Starting yesterday would have been better, but today is the next best time. We will never be younger or have more hours remaining than we do at this very moment. Once we truly understand that, the urgency gets real. But how and where to start?

How to get going

This is where resolutions come in. Despite this post’s title, resolutions are important, it’s only the “New Year’s” part that doesn’t matter. Resolutions are just goals. Whatever we call them, this is where it starts.

We need to start with clearly defined goals that are specific, quantifiable, and time bound. For example, “to lose weight” is too ambiguous. A better goal would be “to lose 10 pounds in 2 months.“

Keep going, break down each goal into, smaller, incremental parts. For example, “lose 5 pounds per month and 1.25 pounds per week.” Keep going until we have small, daily, steps, that are practical and achievable. For example, “power walk for 20 minutes per day during lunch break.”

Write it down, more than once, into concise summary bullet points that flow from the big picture goal down to daily actions. Place the summaries where we see them, like on our desks or nightstands. Make a ritual of re-reading them everyday until they are embedded into our minds and until there are no questions about exactly what we need to do everyday.

How to keep going

After we are clear about what to do, there’s nothing left to do but to do it. If we properly defined our goals and activities, then this should be easy as following  step-by-step instructions. If not, it’s then back to the drawing board to refine our goals until the next steps are as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Action and activity are crucial, but so are systematic evaluation and review. We must routinely evaluate our results. This helps us understand if our actions are leading to desired progress, or if we’re just running in circles.

The quantifiable qualities of our goals and activities makes evaluation more effective. For example, if we only lost 3 pounds instead of the targeted 10, then we know how far we are from our goal.

From there we can identify which actions (or lack of actions) affected our results, and consider changes as needed. For example, was 20 minutes of walking not enough, or was losing 10 pounds too much to target?

Rinse, repeat, and keep doing until we get the progress and results we want.

No time like the present

It’s simple, but not easy, nothing worth achieving is. With practice, discipline, and consistency this process will lead to achieving our goals one after another, like falling dominoes over time.

The best part is we don’t have to wait for New Year’s or any other arbitrary date. New Year’s resolutions don’t matter. All that matters is being clear about what we want and taking action to pursue it, step by step and day by day.

Start today, start now, there will never be more time and opportunity than in the present.

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HWL