New Year Resolutions that Work

“A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because her trust is not on the branch but on its own wings.” — Confucius

I rarely make New Year resolutions and have been avoiding the “new year, new me” mentality.

Two decades ago on Dec 31, 1999, when people were experiencing the Y2K scare, a wise man asked me this question, “Is there a significant meaning behind turning the century, the decade, or the year?”  The question struck me and I didn’t know how to answer it.  Back then I did have the belief and wish that if I just made some sort of New Year resolutions, then by the turn of the century, it would usher in a new era in my life and my life would somehow miraculously get better.  He then went on and said, “These are just numbers, like the weather temperature degrees. If you don’t improve and develop yourself on a daily basis throughout the year, calendar numbers and temperature degrees won’t have any impact on your wellbeing.”

So, instead of New Year resolutions, I use my “divide and conquer” strategy throughout the year. First, I ask myself WHAT do I want to improve and WHY?  I want to make sure that my WHYs come from my own aspirations and not from what others want and society’s expectations.  From there, I outline my WHATs into my Big Yearly Goals that I am working to accomplish by the end of the first quarter, half-year mark, or the end of the year.  On average, I have three to four Big Yearly Goals per year.  And, I would recommend sticking to three or four Big Yearly Goals per year because you don’t want to overwhelm yourself.

Once I have a very clear set of my Big Year Goals, I break them down into smaller segments. Then, I prioritize these smaller segments and put deadlines on my calendar.  From there, I break these smaller segments down further into doable tasks and schedule them into my daily and weekly calendar.  So, each week, month, and quarter, I just focus on achieving those smaller segments and tasks, and stop worrying about the other ones.

Here is an example. 

One of my 2019 “New Year Resolutions” was developing a stronger social media and online presence which included building my own website, creating a monthly newsletter and blog, and weekly FB, IG, and LinkedIn postings.  At first glance, this resolution or “WHAT” was huge, unaccomplishable, overwhelming, and scary.  I had never built a website before and had absolutely no experience in writing blogs, let alone sending out a monthly newsletter.  

However, using my “divide and conquer” strategy, I broke down my resolution into three Big Yearly Goals.  I started by focusing on learning and building my website in the months of January and February.  By the end of February, my website was up and running.  March hit and I began educating myself on writing blogs and putting the newsletter together.  In the second week of May, I emailed out my very first blog and newsletter.  I used the summer months to test out different and simple social media tactics.  At the end of the summer, I chose a tactic that fit my lifestyle, and I started posting more social media content.

By the end of September, I had achieved my “New Year Resolution” building a stronger social media and online presence.  Yes, it took me about nine months, but if I had tried to do it all at once at the beginning of 2019 without a game plan, most likely I would have been overwhelmed and disheartened and given up.  While knocking out all of these tasks and working on this specific WHAT, I was still giving speeches and working on my other WHATs.  Sometimes it’s not about what you can do on January 2nd, but it’s about being persistent, being patient, and continuing to work hard and smart after February 2nd.  If you want to learn more about goal setting and achieving your visions and dreams, I am more than happy to share with you in detail my tools and methodologies!

Please do let me know your thoughts. For me, this is a work in progress, and I am eager to learn others!