Resolutions are Not Binary: Six ideas about resolutions

I used to be skeptical about making resolutions. Like many people this time of year I would make a list of things I wanted to accomplish. Usually I would get caught up in a rush of excitement thinking, “This is the year I am finally going to (name the resolution).” Of course the expectation being that if I accomplished my resolution my life would somehow be not just better but “dramatically” better. After all, who wants to have a resolution if there is not some huge payoff.

Then the fall of 2014 came and it felt like the wheels of the bus were coming off one by one. Challenges at work. Challenges with my career. Challenges with finances. It felt like so many of these things were out of my control, yet they were having dramatic effects on my life. As the year ran down I suggested to my wife we make a list of goals for 2015 and put them up in our kitchen. We ended up with over 25. One of the important goals was to have emergency cash on hand and so I made a nice bar graph which we would color in as we filled in the pot of funds we had put away. We also included a couple of other lists one being people we wanted to see and another list on ideas to generate income. My main reason in doing this was to get a sense of control over my situation. What I learned was incredible and has deeply impacted our home.

Here are six ideas think about resolutions differently.

1.    Write it down and put it up

In the past when I made a resolution or set a goal it was only in my head. And thus as time went on I would forget about that goal and it would just fade away. Writing down the goal made it real and gave me a sense of commitment that merely thinking about it in my head did not. That my wife and I agreed on the goal meant one other person was also involved. In one sense I was saying to another person, “I am committed to this goal.” And by posting our goals in our kitchen where we could see them they became a part of our life. It became easy to check where we were on our goals. And that, we found out, was not a negative experience that we expected. Rather it was just a neutral statement of where we were with regards to our goals.

2.    Goals are not binary

Most people assume goals are either accomplished or not. You either kept your resolution or failed. I used to think that way and it is what kept me from writing my goals down. “Why do I want a list of things I have not accomplished staring at me?” What I learned is that goals/resolutions fall into several categories. There are those we accomplish and feel good about. There are those we do not even attempt for a wide variety of reasons. There are those we attempt and fail. And there are those we attempt and realize it was not really a good goal after all. But here is an insight that was powerful to me: even in failure or reassessment of a goal there is a sense of accomplishment. In 2015 when I applied for a position at an international organization I was following one of my career goals. When I did not move past the second interview I noticed something I had not expected. As I updated my goal with dates of that interview I had a sense of pride that I had put myself out there pursued that goal. And for those goals I did not complete I found there was not that sense of failure that I expected. In fact, our top goal for the last three years is to write a book. Maybe we will this year, and maybe we will not. It is just one goal out of many. But that we keep it on the list reminds us that it is important.

3.    Goals need not be significant

Some of our goals might seem trivial to outsiders. And admittedly there are some low-hanging fruit on the list. “Clean up P-room.” “Make a garden.” “Sell tansu.” These are hardly life-changing goals. Yet, we have found that if they are important to us and we want to get them done it is best to put them on the list. The added benefit is that when we either update the goal with a progress report or cross it off there is a sense of accomplishment.

4.    Goals clarify values

When we review our goals we can see patterns that reflect who we are as individuals, as a couple, and as a family. We see what is important to us and what is not. This is important when we get tripped up by something that throws our emotional equilibrium off balance. It happens to all of us from time to time. Something trivial takes on a life of its own as we mull over the issue and try to find some resolution. Sometimes when I go back to our goals I find clarity what is important and find it easier to let go and move on.

5.    Goals free you

I assumed that if I had a list of goals/resolutions staring at me I would feel this sense of weight and obligation to complete them. And each “failure” would feel like an added weight around my neck and an affirmation that I cannot accomplish things. What I found was just the opposite. As I mentioned, moving beyond the binary approach meant that I was no longer tying myself down to either feeling free (accomplishment) or weighted down (failure/not accomplished). Putting that goal/resolution up on the piece paper in our kitchen empowered me and freed me. Most importantly, I was free to interpret the resolution of that goal and what it meant to me. It put those goals/resolution into perspective to the many things I am and want to accomplish.

6.    Goals are not time-bound

As we wound down 2016 we reviewed our goals and noticed a couple that seemed to be easy to knock out by the end of the year. Two of these required cleaning and in both cases I think we agreed we did not complete them sufficiently to cross them off the list by the end of 2016. And that was just fine with us, they will continue to be works in progress for 2017. Then we noticed a goal our daughter had set to ride her bike to a store that was about 10km from our house. When we made our list in January 2016 she was five and asked for that goal to be put up there. We had made one attempt in 2016 and she got less than half way. Well, it was January 3, 2017, and that goal was still there. Was she interested in giving it a try? Yep, now six she wanted to give it a shot. I think all of us thought it was a long-shot at best but thought why not see if we can cross this goal off. Well, as they sometimes say, it was one hell of a ride. Jogging beside her I felt a huge sense of pride as she finally pulled into the store parking lot 10km later. It mattered to no one that it happened on the 3rd day of 2017. She had achieved a goal that was simply incredible and you could see that on her face.

Write your goals and post them for a year. See how you feel in December. My guess is that you will be surprised how you feel and will learn new things about yourself. And isn’t that what we seek in order to improve ourselves?