2016 is going to be different!
Or not.
Anyone who has ever made a resolution (or resolutions) at the start of a new year knows how hard it is to see them through. It comes as no surprise that we regard them as more of a joke than a sincere statement of intent.
So why do we do it then? Why do we make promises to ourselves we can’t keep year after year?
Because we have to.
Just like a child with a box of crayons finds it difficult to leave a loose piece of paper blank, we find it hard to resist the blank slate a new year promises. After all, what pairs better with a major event or change than a big commitment? But if the success of a commitment was based on the size and importance of the event it was paired with we’d probably see a lot fewer million dollar celebrity weddings ending in divorce.
This doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless. It’s true we have a hard time meeting our resolutions for the new year, but it would be wrong to ignore the resolutions we complete each day.
If you’ve ever taken out the trash, washed dishes in the sink, or went grocery shopping you took action on a resolution. You may not have announced it on Facebook or told it to someone at a holiday party, but you recognized something needed to be done and made it happen.
But we’re talking about big goals here, not errands. Losing fifty pounds isn’t the same as picking up milk from the store. This is true. Some goals are much bigger than others or have higher hurdles to overcome in order to complete them. There are a lot more steps involved when it comes to losing a lot of weight compared to visiting a grocery store for supplies.
It turns out those steps are the solution to the entire problem.
Let’s stick with the diet example for a moment. Losing fifty pounds is a lot of work. There are a lot of things that go into it. You have to be more active, you need to eat right, and you need to be patient since your body can’t drop all that weight in one night no matter what you do. But what does ‘more active’ mean? What does ‘eat right’ entail? We have vague notions of what we mean personally when we say these things, but they’re not specific enough to take action on.
David Allen points this out in his book (and productivity system by the same name) Getting Things Done (GTD). Fundamentally GTD is about reducing the cognitive load and paralysis that comes from having too much to do. Everyone can think of a time when they had so much to get done that they just shut down and chose to do nothing instead. GTD suggests that this reaction stems from our inclination to focus on the big picture (all of the tasks we have to do) and not the smaller and less overbearing aspects of what we have to get done (the simple steps we need to take for each task). Recognizing this, GTD recommends taking large general tasks and breaking them down into the small actionable next steps needed to complete those tasks.
And this is exactly how we need to frame our resolutions.
Let’s apply it to the diet example from earlier. Our general goal is to lose fifty pounds. Now that we have our goal we need to identify the steps to meet it. We’ve already identified those as eating right and exercising more. Those steps are still too broad. They both entail so much that if you were to try and tackle just one you’d likely be too overwhelmed to make any progress. So we dig deeper. We’ll focus on eating right. What do we need to do to eat right? We probably need to stop eating out so much and cooking more of our own meals. What do we need to do that? We need healthy food in the house. How can we get that? We need to go to the store and pick it up. What will we need for our trip to the store? A grocery list. Putting together a healthy grocery list is far more approachable than just ‘eating right’, but both arguably bring you closer to losing weight.
Think about it this way. What if instead of a resolution to lose weight you had a resolution to eat right and work out more. You’d probably lose weight as a result. What this means is that if we focus more on the steps and requirements over the end goal (or large general tasks) we have much better guidance on what to do and a higher chance to actually meet the larger goal.
So how can you meet your resolutions this year?
Take your resolution and sit down with a pen and paper. Write your resolution out at the top of the page (writing it down will help you commit to it even more). Below your resolution write down the large tasks you’ll need to do to meet your resolution. Next, break down each task into the next steps you need to take to get started on each one. This isn’t about figuring out all the steps just the ones you need to do next to move forward on them.
These small next steps are your real resolutions and this piece of paper is your visible reminder of what you have to do next to meet your goal(s) for the year.
When the clock strikes midnight and 2016 arrives things will be different this time. Instead of a vague aspiration, you’ll have a small set of simple tasks to get to work on that are no more difficult to tackle than your average shopping list. You’ll score some quick wins early on and feel energized to do more. Regularly update your task list and enjoy a successful 2016.
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