The Rise and Fall of the "New Year's Resolution"

Ah, the good old “New Year’s Resolution”. A big commitment at the beginning of the year, that some commit to, and others forget in the second week of January. The reality of course, is in between. Writing down what you would like to achieve during the year is a great way to motivate yourself to have a fresh start. But, everything looks good on paper until it is time to execute.

I’m not a trained expert when it comes to goal setting, new years resolutions, or even the psychology and methods to it. I do have a history of Creating my own year. And for those of you that get stuck with unresolved New Year’s Resolutions, I’d like to share tips from my own meandering experience.

1. Think about what really matters
Often when setting up a list of goals, we tend to go for the ones that are most common. In some way, society shapes us so we blatantly copy goals from one another without even being aware of it. In some cases you may feel like the goal/resolution is really yours, but upon further inspection, there might be a larger story behind it. And also a reason you’ve set the wrong resolution.

Last week, I decided to start of 2024 with a little reflection on the previous year. It helped me think on what I really appreciate and why. Let’s start with one of my ‘resolutions’, a healthy lifestyle. For me, a healthy lifestyle consist of quality exercise, a proper diet and mental health. My main focus for this year is on getting quality exercise. And for many people, that means taking the gym membership a little more serious. For me, there is one simple problem with that approach. As a former athlete, that participated competitively in 5+ different sports, I will take running on a field or a court over running on a treadmill, 10 out of 10 times.

So, understanding that you need to adjust the resolution in a way it fits your personal style is the first start. But, it will not be enough as a daily or weekly task with an end goal. For me, getting into shape has little to do with a certain weight, body fat percentage or milestone. My son turns 6 this year and has taken a keen interest in sports. Getting into shape for me is making sure I’ll be able to compete with him in any sport until he is either old enough to life on his own or he reaches a level of competitiveness that requires more professional support.

In short, your new year’s resolution should be centered around what really matters to you, and not what society expects from someone your age/size/stature… Everybody is wired different. Make sure to know how you are wired, and formulate the resolution accordingly.

2. Be realistic with your goals
During my student years, my mother decided to introduce me to mind mapping. Ever since, I would spend a couple of days in December mind mapping to get an overview of what I valued in life. As someone who is interested in way too many things, mind mapping helps me structure wether or not something fits into my life, or… if it interests me enough to make sacrifices, how I can fit it into my life. For the first 5 years back in Suriname, I said ‘Yes’ to almost every professional opportunity that I come across. In 2024, it has become the exact opposite, as I have to learn to say ‘No’ more and more, even saying ‘No’ to things I would thoroughly enjoy and love doing.

After years of practice, the mind map has cleared up into a very systematic approach to my workweek. In 2023, I started realizing that whatever I did, the structure of my workweek would only work for about half of the year. The other half, would become complete chaos. This year, it became clear why. Of the 52 weeks I have in 2024, there are only about 18 weeks that I can follow my regular weekly schedule. 7 weeks are vacation weeks, in which there is no school for my children and I also maintain a different work mode. 16 weeks are event weeks, where the focus of work differs so much from the regular weeks, that the event we are working towards takes over the schedule. 1 week for strategic planning and finally 10 weeks which I refer to as Evaluation weeks. These are in-between weeks, often after I’ve made a trip or come back from vacation, where urgent business matters don’t allow a wait of a couple of weeks and need to be taken care of. As much as I’d like to, these weeks usually don’t allow me to work or fully commit to the goals I’ve set up.

In short, planning out my whole year made me realize that I’m only fully in control of my weekly schedule 35% of the time. The other 65% of the time, I have commitments to others. Whether that is my family at home, my team at work or my clients. Setting up personal goals that can be achieved or maintained are often the biggest de-motivators to keep a new years resolution going. So start with realistic expectations.

3. Don’t give up
This is probably the hardest one. When you start planning the year or writing down your goals, you are hyped up. You might even get a great start… And then, life hits you. Life hits you hard. Something totally unexpected comes around. Your focus gets derailed, and your mind switches off. It becomes easy to say ‘maybe, it doesn’t matter enough’ or ‘it was an unrealistic goal to begin with’.

The only problem is. It does matter enough. And it is realistic. It just isn’t easy. The reality is, over 90% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. Around 80% has already failed by February. If it was easy, everyone would do it. So, it starts with believing, you aren’t everybody. And, if your resolution matters to you and is realistic, you should continue to pursue it, even more so after a bad day or a bad week.

Don’t give up. If you fall, get back up. Learn the lesson and continue. But don’t stop.
Bookmark this page and read it back after a bad day or week. That’s a mental note for myself, but you are free to do so as well ;).

See you next week.
#lobi
Jean-luc