Resolutions

Today, January 10th, is unofficially known as "Quitter's Day" - yes, it really is a thing!  "Quitter's Day" typically occurs on the second Friday after New Year's Day and is the day when most people have decided to quit on their resolutions for the new year.  Apparently the tradition of setting New Year's resolutions started during ancient times, though the concept of a "Quitter's Day" is much more recent.  According to research conducted by Strava in 2019, around 80% of individuals on their platform had abandoned their resolutions by the second week of January.  More recent research suggests that the vast majority of individuals give up on their resolution within a month.

The word resolution when used in this particular context is defined as a firm decision to do or not do something.  Most people that I know come up with at least one resolution for the New Year, either committing to doing more of something or less of something.  Most resolutions involve exercise, dieting and weight loss, or trying to break some bad habit.  There are numerous articles on how not to break your New Year's resolution (here's a great one on Medium), so I am not going to add anything new here in today's post.  To be 100% honest, I don't make a resolution every new year.  Rather, I come up with my own personal list of annual goals.

I've found that setting personal and professional goals for myself is a much more fruitful exercise than coming up with a resolution that I will likely fail on anyway.  To be clear, the great thing about a New Year's resolution is that it is usually simple, clear, concise, and focused.  Some experts would argue that setting 5-10 personal and professional goals is too many, but it works for me.

This year I tried to focus on goals that would help my mind, my body, and my spirit.  I focused on intellectual, physical, and spiritual growth and development.  Three of my goals are physical in nature (and yes, one involves weight loss), four are intellectual in nature and involve new priorities for learning, and three are spiritual in nature and relate to developing new friendships and improving the ones that I already have.  

I try to use the SMART goal framework.  For example, all of my goals are all time-bound, in that they are things that I want to accomplish by the end of the year.  I've found that when it comes to goal-setting, it's a marathon and not a sprint.  I suspect that part of the reason why individuals give up on their resolutions is because they try to do everything all at once in the first few weeks of the new year.  It's also important to push yourself a little, so all of my goals are what we would call "stretch goals".  Importantly, however, I don't set the bar so high that it's almost impossible to reach.  For example, I did NOT set a goal to run next year's Chicago Marathon in under three hours!

Only time will tell if I achieve my personal goals.  However, I feel pretty good about them.  I'm not necessarily trying to completely re-invent myself, which is why I think a lot of people give up on their New Year's resolution.  For those of you who find yourself abandoning your one resolution for the year on Quitter's Day (or even later in the month), try setting annual goals instead!