As we near the end of January of the New Year, it’s that magical time for two groups of people. For those who have Resolutions for the New Year, the overwhelming majority either have or shortly will give up and return to their old lives or at least pretending to work on change in their lives. For them, it’s a time of Freedom. They’re going to get back whatever time they’ve put into those Resolutions and let go of the stress of making change in their lives.
For those who set yearly Goals, this is also a magical time. It’s that time where habits begun on or near January 1st are becoming ingrained habits. Those habits are second nature now. They’re the foundation for the changes that are coming. The work that we’ve put in so far is beginning to pay off in small ways. Those small payoffs are going to begin getting bigger and bigger as the year goes on, but they can’t do that unless we spend the time at the beginning to create those new habits.
January is the most critical time for Goal Setters and Resolvers. It’s when the change we want to create is either begun or buried.
Why is there a difference between the two groups? It’s primarily in the attitude and preparation they have and take when they get started. Serious Goal Setters have a real plan and a real desire to make those changes in their lives. It’s not a wish or something they’d like to do. It’s something they have to do. They don’t give themselves an out. It’s Success or adjust and try again and again until they get there.
The Resolvers generally don’t have a plan. They don’t have specific targets or dates to achieve their resolutions. They aren’t committed to what they’ve resolved to do. That’s not just a recipe for failure, it’s an oxymoron. To be resolved, means you’re committed and serious about yourself, yet Resolutions are nearly universally considered a joke. Conventional wisdom says that more than 95%, maybe as many as 99%, of the Resovlers give up before the end of January.
The similarity between the two groups is that both recognize the need to make changes in their lives.
There’s a gap of some kind between where they are and where they want to be, and they know it. They’re uncomfortable about it. They may even be embarrassed about it. Yet Resolvers aren’t experiencing enough pain to make the final commitment to do the real work to make the changes. That’s the difference in attitude I mentioned above. Goal Setters have made staying where they are more painful than doing the work to change. Resolvers have learned to be OK or even comfortable with their lives. Sometimes the pain is their way of punishing themselves, because they don’t think they’re worthy of being better.
The other difference is the preparation to make changes.
Goal Setters have a plan to make those changes. Sometimes it’s a general plan, or it can be very specific. Which one doesn’t really matter. They’ve got the plan, and they follow it. Every day. The plan becomes the focus of their daily activities. For Resolvers, there’s mostly a vague idea of things that they ought to be doing, but no real idea of how to go about it consistently. In the absence of a plan, they keep doing the things they’ve always done. So they get the things they always have.
To be Goal Setters instead of Resolvers, we need to know where we’re going and how to get there. It’s the basic idea behind Values Based Success and Values Based Goal Setting. Know what’s important to you. Know where you’re going. Know how you’re going to get there. Follow the road map that gets you from here to there.
