The Problem With Resolutions

The problem I have with new years resolutions is that people tend to treat them like a wish list you’d give to Santa. You write them down, mail the list to the North Pole, and then hope that Santa brings you what you wished for. As a grown up adult, the probability of success with this strategy is very low. By February you’ve given up on the resolution and by March you probably can’t even remember what you wished for in the first place

That’s not to say that the new year cycle is all bad. In fact, there’s several things I really love about the new year:

REFLECTION. I think it’s valuable, healthy and productive to do a “year in review” – to take stock of the past year, to determine what went well, what didn’t go well, and why. This can be more than just an evaluation, it can be a meaningful learning experience to identify important personal lessons that enable future course corrections. This is sort of like the “After Action Review” that the Army conducts. For more information, there are a ton of resources about this online.

BIG(GER) PICTURE THINKING. I think it is also really important that we regularly take a step back from our daily lives, to get out of the mundane, trivial, daily details that tend to consume us. When we take a step back, we can spend quality time thinking about what is most important to us, where we are headed, and what we want the next few years of our life to look like. I think that most of us don’t do this enough, because it’s so easy to stay mired in the daily details. However, if we don’t take the time to plan and design our lives, we will have given up our power to shape our lives. We have to be intentional to create the life that we most want.

PLANNING. While I am not fond of wishful thinking and vague resolutions, I am incredibly fond of the planning process – both high level and detailed planning. Sending wishlists to the north pole might have a low probability of success, but detailed planning has a much better success rate. If there is a specific goal you have in your life, then HOW do you plan to achieve it? What specific steps will you take; how much time and money will you invest; who will you ask to help you; and what milestones will you use to measure your progress? Planning all of these details serves a very valuable purpose. Then you can turn your plans into specific commitments, and commitments are far more powerful than wishes. 

PRIORITIZATION. In the world of triathlon, triathletes often compete in many races each year. However, in order to prioritize their training cycles, they need to choose which races are most important, and plan their training phases around those key races. During any given year, a serious triathlete might race in 4-10 races, on average. However, only 1 or 2 of those races can be their “A” race for the year. The annual training phases are all planned around these A races, and the training is intended to achieve maximum performance at the A races. Then there could be another 2-3 “B” races – these are races where you want to do well, and you will do some amount of focused training. Finally, you can have 4-6 “C” races – these are really just races that are used as training, and they can be optional in case of injury or other challenges. The reason I find this model useful, is that this can also be applied to annual personal goals. At the start of the year, we might come up with a list of 12 things we want to accomplish: lose weight, find a new job, try a new sport or hobby, etc. However, it is completely unrealistic to think we’ll accomplish every goal we have. Which is why prioritization is so important. Pick 2 goals that are your A goals. Pick 2-3 others that are your B goals. Then make everything else a C goal. This way, when it’s March and you’re busy and stressed out and overwhelmed, you already know which goals are most important, and which ones can be put on hold. News flash: you will not achieve all your goals for 2011. Therefore, figure out NOW which ones are most important, which ones you will refuse to abandon.

While there are a gazillion books, websites, podcasts and other resources that will be touted this new year season, there are really just two activities that I’ve seen that I really like, and I plan to use for myself in the years to come.

1. PICK 3 WORDS. Instead of making a list of 20 goals, pick 3 words that will be your theme for the year. A theme gives you an overarching focus that will guide the entire year. This can be useful for setting the tone and helping your prioritize your focus for the year.

My 3 words for 2011 are: LOVE, ACT, PUBLISH.

LOVE: I want to do more work that I love, with people that I love working with. I want to follow my passions more, follow my intuition, and let love guide more of my work. So no, this doesn’t have to do with my love relationship – that is already going very well. Love for me in this context is about creating more of what I love in all areas of my life.

ACT: I’ve been talking about things I want to do in my future, and I have lots and lots of creative ideas and lots of lists that I keep track of. But I really want to act on more of the ideas, and implement more of them, more quickly. Act for me is about more frequent and consistent execution and implementation.

PUBLISH: I do a lot of writing, but I want to do more publishing. Both on this blog and on the book I’ve been working on – I want to put more emphasis on the publication of my writing. I’ve set a specific blogging goal – to put 104 times during 2011. This is specific, and measurable, and realistic – it will just require me to blog twice per week every week of the year. Totally doable.

2. STOP DOING LIST. Peter Drucker coined the term “planned abandonment” and I think this is relevant for individuals as well as organizations. We spend too much time creating our to-do lists, and not enough time on our stop-doing lists. In order to create space in our lives for the things that matter most, we need to prune away the less important things, and the less effective habits. We need to purge, in a significant way. I really really wish that more people would get in the habit of generating stop-doing lists, because this can be so powerful. We have to stop-doing the wrong things in order to have the capacity to start-doing the right things.

There is a great tool I highly recommend called writing prompts. This helps turn off our mental editor and dig deeper into our subconscious mind. Lots of people advocate using writing prompts to generate creative thinking. All you really do is start writing – and keep writing – without any worry for spelling or logic or grammar – or anything else. You just put the pen to paper and you write non-stop. This can be useful for many different projects.

So try this writing strategy: Write for 10 minutes straight - without stopping - about this writing prompt:

The 3 things – that if I stopped doing – would really make 2011 great are……

Don’t censor yourself, just write and write and write. Then see what you’ve written. For me, I wrote about this topic and after reviewing my writing, the 3 things that I plan to stop doing are:

* Stop sleeping as much as I do. I could really afford to sleep less, and take fewer naps on weekends. If I slept less, I’d have more time for the personal goals I have established. I could use that time better. And no, I don’t want to be sleep deprived, but I could be more productive on the weekends. Also, if I eat healthier, I’ll have more energy and be less tired.

* Stop watching so much TV. This is a big one that has crept up on me over the past year. When I’m home alone, I just never turn on the TV – it’s not something I ever do. But Mad Dog tends to watch much more TV – and even when he’s not actually watching, he has the TV on. So when we’re both home, and he’s watching something, I’m inclined to watch with him, just to spend more time together. In order to spend more time with him, I end up watching much more TV than I really want to. So this is something that it would be easy to do less of – I just need to be bold and disciplined to walk away and do my own thing, and not get sucked in.

* Stop wasting frustrated energy about work – and other things I can’t change. If something isn’t going to change, then all I can do is stop wasting personal energy and thoughts about it. Just let it go. I will work my 40 hours, then go home and let it all stay at work. I will stop wasting precious mental and emotional energy about the job. At this point, it is a job, and it’s just a job, so it needs to stay that way.

When I reflect on 2010, it was a pretty good year overall, although a bit of a rollercoaster. Like other people, I tend to group things into categories:  

-- Fitness: I exercised fewer hours in 2010, but I think I exercised smarter.  I didn’t do any races, but I joined a new CrossFit gym and I started pushing myself to get stronger.

-- Health – no news is good news – overall, fairly happy with my health.

+ School – I’m very glad it’s over and happy that I finished.  This was my 2^nd – and last – masters degree.  No more formal education for me.  Plus symbol because it’s over, I finished with a 4.0 GPA and now I have the credibility of an ivy league masters degree. 

+ Home – We finally went from 2 houses to 1 – yeah!  We also made a lot of great improvements and upgrades: carpet, paint, furniture, etc.  It really feels more like home now.

? Career/Work – Major rollercoaster.  Learned a lot that I will carry with me into 2011.

+ Love – Everything continues to be pretty great here.  We really make our relationship a priority, and celebrate our anniversary every week and every month.  We really focus on spending time together, laughing a lot, being playful together, and taking care of each other.

-- Finances – Up and down here, mostly due to the 2^nd house.  But overall, can’t complain.

-- Social – I didn’t spend enough time with friends, even though I value them, school and work made this challenging.  This will be more of a priority in 2011. 

+ Other – HUGE positive experience of adopting Charly – probably one of the big highlights of 2010.  He came into our life and has really turned us into more of a family and made this more of a home.  He’s a very special dog, and we’re very lucky to have him.  Also spent a lot of time in 2010 learning to golf – which is challenging in all its own ways…

-- Travel – We had some really great trips in 2010 – to San Diego and Phoenix.  We also went to Ohio and Florida to visit family.  But unfortunately we ended the year in the east coast snow storm and spent a week with snow and chilly temps.  Brrrr. 

These are the same categories that I’ve used to do my 2011 detailed planning. Within each of these categories, I have outlined specific goals, with specific due dates that will help me measure progress. I’ll hang up these deadlines around the house, to serve as constant reminders.

Some of the specific plans for 2011 include these:

* Blogging – Publish at least 104 posts during 2011
* Fitness – lose 12 pounds by April 1
* Raise $10,000 for non-profit organizations during 2011
* Career - Set up infrastructure for my personal business
* Social - Set up mastermind group with regular monthly meetings
* Social – invest time and money in specific events to reconnect with people

I realize this is a super duper long post, so I’ll end things here. As you can see, I really do appreciate the value of the new year and taking time to reflect on the past and become intentional about the future. I hope you’ll also take time this week, and this month to consider what’s most important in your life.