Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work: A Better Way to Crush Your Goals
For forever now, we’ve been hearing that New Year’s resolutions are the best, maybe even the ONLY way to crush your goals for the year ahead. I just read yet another email about new year's resolutions, and since everyone seems to be talking about them we all should be setting new year's resolutions. Right?
Uhh… no.
I think most of this advice is coming from a place of good intentions. But it’s easy advice. And not only does one specific method or strategy not work for everyone, but setting new year’s resolutions definitely isn’t the best option out there.
Also, how do you know that the “experts” are following their own advice? Or that they’re getting great results from setting new year’s resolutions?
It seems to me that you can spend a lot of time feeling frustrated or like a failure because setting new year’s resolutions isn’t working for you when you’re not the problem!
I know because back when I was younger, I tried setting new year’s resolutions, and I just didn’t get great results.
In fact, I experienced burnout! I set these big, huge goals at the beginning of the year and went straight to working on them. I didn’t consider how they connected to my overall vision for my dream life or how they connected to my sense of purpose. I had a bunch of individual goals that were completely disconnected from each other…and none of them were getting done. Oh, and I felt a bit like I was failing at all of them because it was just too much to handle.
I also didn’t feel like I was in alignment when I was setting new year’s resolutions because it was so time bound…starting at the beginning of the year and ending when the year closed. And believe me, your body can tell when you’re not being in alignment with yourself.
Always remember you are exactly where you’re supposed to be! Your timeline is uniquely yours, and there’s no rush to do something just because it’s the beginning of a calendar year. You might gain clarity on your goals in April (not January).
What’s Not So Great About New Year’s Resolutions
Here’s the thing. Most of us fail at our new year’s resolutions and here’s why:
Accountability - you don’t have the support infrastructure to help you achieve your goal.
Mindset - you’re not in your season of change or goal setting. Just because it’s January doesn’t mean your mind and body are aligned to think about goal setting.
Fear - you’re scared of failing at the goal you want to achieve. Just because you’re excited about the idea of completing the goal doesn’t mean you can’t be scared of the process of getting there. There’s a lot of unknowns in the process and unknowns can be naturally scary.
Change - you’ve done well for yourself and have processes that you understand and have always implemented to get things done. In order to hit this next big goal, you will have to do things differently and try new methods.
Time - you don’t have time for a big, dream sized goal right now…and guess what? That’s okay! The beginning of the year might not provide you with space or time to develop meaningful goals, implement a way to track progress and begin to execute the goal(s).
Vision - you haven’t thought about your vision for your dream life. This is the foundation of meaningful goal setting! If your goals aren’t connected to something bigger in your life, it can be hard to keep up with the habits of change that need to occur.
Want proof?
Check out The Economic Times article, “Why it’s so difficult to execute resolutions.”
Read The Ohio State University’s article, “Why Most New Years Resolutions Fail.”
So what can you do to turn your dream life into your real life? Fortunately, there’s a better way. Instead of setting new year’s resolutions, try something else.
Wouldn’t you rather spend your time doing something that feels like it aligns with you and that’s also crazy effective at getting you closer to your dream life? Well, now you can. And it doesn’t have to be confusing or overwhelming.
A Better Way to Achieve Crush Your Goals
Here’s what I did to turn my dream life into my real life instead of setting new year’s resolutions.
Step #1: Set a Vision For My Dream Life
I got clear about the vision for my dream life: live an exciting life full of love and growth in a city I adore. I am continually learning while joyfully sharing my knowledge with others. I thought to myself…if I had my dream life, what would it look like, and who would be there?
This step of dreaming and visualizing is so important. It empowers you to set goals that align with your dreams. In life, it can be easy to get swept up in all the shoulds. People with great intentions will give you ideas and share what they think you should be doing. If you understand your dreams, you’ll be empowered to cut through the noise of what you “should” do and aim for what aligns with your joy.
Okay, let me say this…skipping this step would be like making a grocery list without having a recipe for what you’ll be cooking.
Step #2: Create holistic Goals in the Four Key Areas of Life
I spent time setting goals in the four key areas of life (personal, professional, health and financial).
This helped me look at myself as a whole human. Not just a daughter. Not just an employee. Not just a dog mom. Not just a friend. Not just a sister. Not just a yogi. Not just a philanthropist. Not just anything. I realized I’m a multi-faceted person who deserves goals that reflect the whole me.
For example:
Researchers suggest that only 9% of people who make new year’s resolutions keep them. In fact, research goes on to show that 23% of people quit their resolutions by the end of the first week, and 43% quit by the end of January.
Since that’s the case, it makes sense to be more intentional in our goal setting if we want to turn our dreams into reality.
Alright…so in step 1, we set our vision..aka picked out the perfect recipe for a chocolate cake. Here we are in step 2 setting holistic goals…aka writing an ingredients list to bake our perfect chocolate cake.
Step #3: Build My Accountability Circle
After setting holistic goals that are aligned with my life vision, I had to ensure I had a support system to go after my dream life.
I decided to inventory who was in my life but also who wasn’t and who needed to get kicked out. Yes, I said it…sometimes people need to be kicked out of your life for you to keep growing and glowing. These are the types of people I knew I had to surround myself with:
The Cheerleader - this is the person who cheers for you at every turn and motivates you to keep going.
The Contrary - this is the person with skills and strengths that are different from yours and can fill in the gaps where you’re unable to perform.
The Coach - this is the person who provides an objective perspective along with training to encourage you along your journey.
The Mentor - this is the person you turn to for strategic advice and wisdom. They’ve accomplished what you aim to accomplish and can share their journey story with you.
YAY! YAY! YAY! Keeping with the theme of baking a chocolate cake…in step 3 we figured out what ingredients were already in our pantry and what were not so we could go to the right grocery store for the missing ingredients. Oh, and we also found some expired ingredients, so we can just throw those out (wink, wink…this is the friend who’s holding your growth back). Now, let’s bake our perfect chocolate cake…I mean, go after our dream life!
Next Steps
If you want to turn your dream life into your real life it’s time to stop making new year's resolutions and instead crush your goals using a strategic method: set your dream life vision, create holistic goals and build yourself an accountability circle.
Check out some of my other goal crushing posts and keep challenging yourself to go after your dream life on your own terms.
In them, you’ll find, and more.
Setting new year’s resolutions can be stressful and full of pressure, then you don’t even check them off the list. Many won’t even get you where you want to go.
The good news is, that you can absolutely build your dream life in a way that feels authentic to you. You just need the right roadmap - and a little free thinking.
If you want more help here, check out my Vision and Goals Roadmap just for you, to help you jump start your goal crushing journey.
Questions? Comments? Drop them below. I can’t wait to hear what you think!
Oh, and come say hi on YouTube, LinkedIn or Instagram!