What’s the deal with resolutions?
It’s January, and our team is back in the office with renewed energies and a laser focus on 2017. For Impossible Bureau and many others, January is a time to reflect, reevaluate and set new resolutions for the months ahead.
And then we started wondering: how can we make sure to keep our resolutions? Are there any foolproof strategies we can apply? Do resolutions even work? So we decided to take a closer look at the nature of resolutions.
According to most researchers, we stick to our new year’s resolutions for about 3 weeks on average and only 8% of us are successful at keeping their new year’s resolutions. Some experts think we should skip them entirely as they’re bound to fail, and others believe that any self-improvement is better than none, so statistics be damned.
Some researchers like Derek Sivers, advise that we keep our goals secret. According to Sivers, sharing your intentions with others is linked to a psychological phenomenon called social reality. The belief is that by telling someone what you want to achieve, your brain is fooled into thinking that the task has already been done because someone else acknowledged it. Thus, giving you a false feeling of satisfaction before you’ve accomplished anything and diminishing your chances of success.
Productivity experts advise that we should treat our resolutions as goals if we want to be successful:
- Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely)
- Write them down
- Be accountable
- Make small, incremental lifestyle changes
There are hundreds of research papers, thousands of apps and entrepreneurs targeting our inability to keep up with our resolutions. Websites like The Quantified Self and Lifehacker are the perfect places to discover just how many products are out there designed to help us keep track of our progress and goals. Because frankly, we’re terrible at it.
In fact, we’re so bad at it that services like stickK.com have learned how to capitalize on that. StickK.com allows you to set a goal and name a referee to enforce it. You can also set a penalty like an e-mailed announcement to a list of friends (or enemies) or make a wager.
A lot of us rely on willpower to help us resist through old habits and temptations. We start with the best of intentions and often, the worst of strategies. And by the end of January, a third of us break our resolutions. By July, more than half will have lapsed.
A study led by Wilhelm Hofmann of the University of Chicago looked into willpower and discovered that the people with the best self-control were the ones who used it the least. Instead of resisting one urge after another and relying on sheer willpower, these people set up strategies for minimizing temptations and avoiding crises. They played offense, not defense.
Coach Lyn Christian of Soulsalt applies a different approach altogether. She advocates for picking a Guiding Theme for the year versus setting resolutions based on rational “should, could and ought to do” thinking. Lyn says, “Resolutions tend to be fueled by an emotional, knee jerk reaction sort of desire. Consequently this brand of motivational fuel burns quickly resulting in the early death of many a New Year’s resolve. I admit that the practice of setting an annual theme is not for everyone. However, it has become a solid and stabilizing practice that has afforded me and many of my clients with just enough structure to nurture a productive, year-long self-improvement.”
Whether resolutions are effective or not, we’ve come to realize a few things from our experience in past years:
- Continually moving forward brings personal satisfaction and rewards. Some people need specific goals and resolutions to guide their success and progression in their role, while others don’t.
- Day-to-day enthusiasm is more important than setting lofty resolutions, even if that means many tries with failures along the way. As a company we like to support people in progressing and achieving their resolutions, but the biggest success always comes to those who are self-motivated and in love with the work they’re doing.
- In our business, expectations are everything. Setting resolutions and not meeting them is worse than having none at all.
- It’s important to understand the ideal goals for the company and strive for them, but we also need to let opportunities and experiences guide the company into a direction we hadn’t necessarily planned.
Some perspectives and resolutions from the Impossible Bureau team
“I’ve decided to adopt ‘experiments’ as my guiding theme for the year in my professional and personal life. Often things that we really want to do are not accomplished through a fear of failure but, as I heard A.J. Jacobs say in a podcast recently, if you call something an ‘experiment’, it can’t fail because it was just an experiment. I have no expectation of success or failure for this year, just to confidently try new things, and encourage others to do so as well.” — Julia
“I’ve never been one to make resolutions, I personally feel that I should be motivated at all times and shouldn’t need a new year to jump start any changes. However, I typically find myself putting in a little extra effort at the beginning of the year. That may be because everyone around me is upping their game and I feel the need to ‘compete’.” — Bradee
“I’ve never been great at following rules and that might be why I tend to avoid creating them for myself. I haven’t set any specific resolutions yet, but I definitely feel they’re useful. Marking each year as an opportunity to grow and improve in measurable ways can be powerful, but I find myself spending more time thinking deeply about the motivations behind my goals, and I suppose if I had to come up with one resolution right now, it would be to be more aware and thoughtful about how I spend my time and energy. Oh, and I suppose I should stop eating half a pint of ice cream every night.” — Jeff
“I don’t make resolutions because I’m terrible at keeping them. Besides, my to-do list is long enough as is. However, I do try to be consistent with a couple of things every year. I try a new experiment for 30 days every month and I do my best to live my life according to 3 basic rules I’ve tattooed on my arm (because I forget things, and I like making lists).” — Nadya
“Resolutions… I’m quite fond of 1024x768. But really, I’m more of a goal setter. Some goals that I have continuing through 2017 are; research and adoption of new web technologies, more active participation in the local dev community and the ketogenic diet.” — Eric
“Every start of a new year I usually set a few goals for myself. Sometimes they are goals I haven’t quite reached in the past. I feel that even though I may not achieve all of them, I’ll still benefit from all I’ll experience through the process. Setting goals = good.” — Anthony
“I don’t complete as many goals as I set, but I do make sure I start and learn from them. This year I’m learning functional programming, how to cook, and web networking.” — Daniel
“Practice more inclusive conversation and try to take more ‘toe in the water’ steps to build momentum for trying new things.” — Blake
