Editor’s Note: Grace Ueng is the founder of Savvy Growth, a noted leadership coaching and management consulting firm, and an expert on wellbeing and performance science. Grace writes a regular column on happiness & leadership for WRAL TechWire.
New Year’s resolutions are doomed to fail
It’s that time of the year when you’ve been thinking about New Year’s resolutions. Are these necessarily a good thing?
- 38.5% of adults in the US make New Year’s resolutions. The top 3 are health related.
- 23% quit in the first week and 9% successfully keep their resolutions.
- People over 55 are 3.1x less likely to have resolutions.
“Most New Year’s resolutions are doomed to failure because it takes a lot more than a resolution to change. It takes a self-understanding … strategies and support.” — Warren Holleman, professor of Behavioral Science, director of Faculty Health & Well-Being, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Find your blindspots
In Knowing Thyself and the Power of a 360-degree review, we learned that “knowing thyself is the essence of leadership.” We all have blindspots. For some, if they knew and changed even just one thing, they would become much more powerful leaders.
Name a few ways that you can get to know yourself better over the coming year. It can be as simple as daily journaling. U.S. presidents have been known to journal, and science shows journaling works to improve health.
Set goals, not resolutions
Rather than naming New Year’s resolutions, instead it is better to set goals.
Goals are more beneficial than resolutions because they are more specific and action oriented, making it easier to create a plan to achieve them.
Strategies and support: 5 Steps
Professor Holleman encourages strategies and support in addition to self understanding to help achieve your goals. I share five straightforward steps:
- Understand why you want to change, why it is important to you and how it may impact others.
- Set specific and challenging long-term goals. Take on no more than three at a time. More than that can become overwhelming and hinder progress. Limiting to one or two is optimal for maintaining focus.
- Make goals visible – a poster on your wall or as simple as a sticky note on your laptop.
- Take micro-steps by setting small and realistic short-term goals that feed into the long-term goal. Breaking down a huge goal into individual steps makes the mountain that you are seeking to climb seem not so steep. I find that having a spreadsheet with individual steps with a timeline/targeted dates where I highlight red, yellow and then green helps me stay on track while satisfying the need to check off and see progress.
- Ask a trusted individual to be your accountability partner. Whether it be a spouse, friend or hired coach, having a partner who truly cares and will hold you to your word leads to more success than striking out on your climb solo.
In Lessons in Leadership, I synthesized key points in my fireside chat with John Replogle, partner at One Better Ventures and previously the highly regarded CEO of Seventh Generation and Burt’s Bees. The last, but not least, point of that chat was the importance of goal setting in John’s life. Given how evergreen his wisdom is, as we plan for 2024 with abundant anticipation, I share key outtakes:
Years ago, at another Harvard event you talked about your goal setting process, and I’ve heard you cite the research that if you write down your goals achievement increases by 50% and if you tell someone it rises to 75%. I often tell my coaching clients this to encourage them to carefully think through their goals and then I partner with them in the journey.
Your goal setting has taken you to many interesting places. What have been the keys to your diligence in goal setting? What is still on your list – can you share with us what goals you have for the coming decades?
Like Pavlov’s dog, if you get a treat from something you do, you want to do it again. John started setting goals at an early age. When you set goals and achieve them, you realize setting goals is a good thing.
When he speaks on campuses, John talks about two fundamental things.
(1) Know yourself and define your purpose. Get really clear on what it is you’re here for, what’s your calling. Where is it that your great gifts meet the world’s great needs? Define that.
(2) Determine goals – the fuel that goes in the tank of your purpose. Write down goals and share where you can.
John sets monthly, annual and five-year goals. He has had good coaches who hold him accountable. He sits down every year the week between Christmas and New Year’s and has a deep review and critical assessment of this year’s goals. He spends 90 minutes on the phone with his coach. He has it scheduled and knows when it is they are going to talk. John knows that he will be held accountable.
This is the time of year he pulls his sheet out assessing where he is and focuses on moving forward those that are behind, otherwise he knows that the end of year conversation will be challenging. He also spends time crafting goals for the coming year. He believes goals are so powerful when you set them. Goal-oriented leaders achieve more. John shared that he has always had a high need to achieve, that it is part of his composition. Goals have served as a major tool.
What are some of your year end planning habits? How do they help you stretch to achieve your goals? Have you written down your goals for the coming year, and have you shared them with an accountability partner?
About Grace Ueng
A management consultant, leadership coach and human performance expert with Savvy Growth, Grace has been covered in The Wall Street Journal, Inc., and MIT Technology Review. Leaders call her when seeking a strategic review of their business, when going through a pivot point, or when they’d like to have a thinking partner to hold them accountable to stretch goals.
Her company offers workshops to improve team effectiveness: Savvy’s Seven: What You Will Learn.
Join her Happiness & Leadership community to be more productive leader: click here
