Tuesday, January 23, 2024

I’ve been thinking about resolutions. Maybe you have, too. It’s the time of year when many are working on our personal New Year’s resolutions in addition to work and personal goals for the year.

If I’m being honest, I’ve skipped making New Year’s resolutions for several years. Or maybe I’ve just resolved to have no resolutions.

You would not have found me at the gym for the first three days of January, desperately trying to force myself into a radical life change. Though there have been years in the past I joined that crowd.

I’m still eating all the bread. I’m still shopping, even though the holiday blitz of spending has passed by. I’ll not be learning a new language in 60 days or less. No. I’ve stopped fooling myself in that regard.

You see, it turns out I’m just not very good at resolving things. Or, said differently, I’m only good at declaring my resolve when a situation is severe or urgent. My success rate shoots up significantly if it is both.

What’s your mindset regarding following through on resolutions? It turns out my mind is just unwilling to fall prey to an artificial construct that urgency exists, when it really does not.

So instead of going through a hype cycle of making resolutions that will quickly or slowly fall away before they become ingrained habits, I’ve erred on the side of efficiency and just opted out of that whole process.

What I’ve started trading in place of Too Big to Achieve Resolutions is incremental goal getting. I’m finally patient enough with myself and life to engage in a process of periodic self-evaluation, followed by thoughtful analysis of what I really want to change (rather than what I should want to change) and from that realistic vantage point, can begin some minor tweaks here and small recalibrations there, to bring reality and desired outcomes in better alignment.

If the resolve/abandon cycle sounds familiar to you, you might give yourself some grace and try making only minor steering wheel corrections, rather than hoping for a smooth ride while jerking the wheel wildly one direction or another. You’ll likely find you cover more ground, and just might enjoy the trip a bit more too.

Monthly, we host a group of women in our Women’s Leadership Summit Community, who are working through these and other topics together. Our January meeting was all about Planning Your 2024 Roadmap. Planning and executing with clarity and consistency can help ensure our goals are met.

If you or someone you know is a professional female, who wants to workshop topics in support of personal and professional growth with other women, please join us. Membership and attendance is free, just sign up and jump in.  We meet virtually. Our February meeting will focus on Effective Communication.

Whether you’re resolved or goal setting, I hope you’re walking an intentional path that leads you toward success, in whatever areas you’ve chosen.

Until next time,

Mary Schuster
Chief Knowledge Officer
October Research, LLC