Goals > Resolutions

For several years now, I’ve cultivated a silent disdain for New Year’s resolutions.

It's not the concept (I’m all about self-improvement); it’s just the way most people go about them.

Really, resolutions are just fodder for cocktail conversations. If you’re at a party on New Year’s Eve and meet a stranger or even reconnect with an acquaintance, “do you have any New Year’s resolutions?” is a pedestrian refrain.

It happens again when you come back to the office and, around the water cooler, a co-worker asks “so did you make any New Year’s resolutions?” to which the common response is “I dunno, work off all of that holiday weight” or “spend more time with the kids” or "update the bunker for the zombie apocalypse."

No one is really taking these things seriously.

And that’s a crying shame.

Because a lifetime of “shoulda, coulda, woulda” adds up to a permanent home in Regret City (which, as I've learned, is the location of the first-ever Nothing Burger).

What’s the antidote?

First, change the language. If you’re serious about improving something in your life, you need to think about "goals" or "results" (not “resolutions").

Do you hear the power in just changing that one word?

There’s a certain grit, a certain weightiness in "goal" and even moreso in "result." ("Resolution," however, just kinda hangs out there like a fart).

Besides - and here’s another way to think about it - you’re always living in the results of previous actions and thoughts. (Kinda cool, huh?). Achieved goals and results change lives. Resolutions? Not so much.

If you're keen for doing more in-depth work, my Quick and Dirty Guide to Setting

and Exceeding Creative Goals will give you clarity on what new results to create and give you a game plan to execute them.

Enjoy and have an awesome 2023.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Setting and Exceeding Creative Goals

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