Resolutions vs Goals
Well, it’s that time again; a new year is upon us. January 1st always brings with it a convenient pausing point for reflection, allowing us to look back and judge how the lives we’re living are matching up to the lives we envision for ourselves.
And, for many people, January 1st also brings with it the opportunity to resolve to do better to live according to our best intentions for ourselves.
The most common approach people take in this pursuit is to create a New Year’s resolution to address a perceived area of shortcoming.
If we’ve put on a few extra pounds, we might resolve to eat better and/or exercise more. If our relationships with our significant other or children are dysfunctional, we might resolve to be more attentive or kind. If we’re unhappy with our work lives, we might resolve to get more training to become more valuable to our employer or to strike out on our own as an entrepreneur.
Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I prefer to focus on goals as opposed to resolutions. Goals are more proactive, while resolutions tend to be reactive, and I like to be as proactive as possible in creating my life. Plus, you can have long-range goals, intermediate-range goals that flow from your long-range goals, and short-term goals that flow from your medium-range goals (I have all of these and more). The result is a much more comprehensive system of goals to guide your life.
That being said, whether you have clearly articulated goals or not, if you need some special emphasis on one particular aspect of your life toward which you aren’t making enough progress, you can use resolutions as a “booster” for that particular goal. So, resolutions still have value for increasing your focus in a specific area.
Resolutions for 2021: What Approach is Best?
Last year, I took the highly specific resolution route when I wrote the blog post “20 for 2020: This Year’s Most Important Resolutions for Educational Consultants.”
In that blog post, I offered a lot of options that consultants might want to consider for taking their businesses to the next level. These options ranged from the VERY high level (such as “Take Work/Life Balance Seriously”) to the much more specific (such as “Have Your Website Professionally Reviewed” or “Start a Blog”).
This year, I want to propose a very different approach: one-word resolutions.
That’s right, a New Year’s resolution in a single word.
I was unfamiliar with this approach until just recently, when I read an article about it by copywriter Mindy McHorse for the American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI) titled “The Anti-Resolution Approach to a New Year of Monstrous Writing Success.”
Here’s how it works. Think about your biggest challenges and your biggest goals and then select a single word that encapsulates what you want to achieve.
Now, write that word out on a notecard or use a super-sized font and print it out on a piece of paper. Place your one word in multiple places where you’ll see it every day—in front of you at your desk, on the bathroom mirror, on the microwave, wherever.
That’s all there is to it. It’s simple, it’s easy, and believe it or not, it’s highly effective.
For example, let’s say that your work habits are a mess and you can’t seem to get a good work flow going. Your one-word resolution might be “structure.” This will put you in the frame of mind to organize your work schedule and habits and to be constantly on the lookout for good ideas about organization (and if you start looking, you’ll find them).
Or perhaps you need to break out of a rut you’re in and challenge yourself to learn new things or take on a bigger role. Maybe you’ll choose the word “brave” or “lion-hearted” (hey, I’ll allow hyphens). Again, if you see it multiple times a day, it will stay top-of-mind, and every time you make a decision, you’ll be prompted to make the brave choice to step out of your comfort zone.
Achieve Both Your Business and Personal Goals for the New Year
The examples I gave above were business resolutions, and most people who read this blog are looking to become more successful in their businesses, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the same technique in your personal life, as well. We all know that, if your personal life is screwy, it will inevitably bleed over into your business life, as well.
So, why not use the one-word resolution approach to improve both aspects of your life? Of course, your business challenges and your personal challenges are bound to be very different, so you’ll need a different word for each aspect.
Here are my one-word resolutions in both areas for 2021, and why I chose them:
Business: “Scale.”
My business is currently a solopreneur business. I do marketing and copywriting for educational consultants to help them grow their businesses. I’m the CEO, the head of marketing, the lead copywriter, the janitor, and the chief bottle washer. But the long-term plan is for the business to use a group of trained copywriters to produce content for clients and for me to produce a number of products (e-books, online courses, etc.) to offer on the website. So, my main goal in my business this year is to get from point A (solopreneur) to point B (small business with a group of freelancers working for it and with products for sale) before December 31, 2021. Having the word “scale” in front of me every day will keep my mind focused on this particular set of objectives as I move forward.
Personal: “Attention”
One of my biggest challenges as I try to scale up a one-person business into a proper small business is to keep my life balanced. It’s easy to crawl into my “bat cave” and disappear from sight for hours (sometimes days) at a time as I work on all my business goals. That’s not fair to my loved ones, and in the long run it will only make me irritable and lead to burnout. I know this, but knowing something is one thing—acting on that knowledge is something else. Having the word “attention” in front of me every day will serve as my reminder to attend to my relationships and keep work and personal life balanced.
See how that works?
Now It’s Your Turn
If you have goals, look for one area that’s not working as well as you’d like or that you’d like to “supercharge.”
Think about how you’d like to change the situation. Pick a single word that encapsulates the change you’d like to make.
Post it wherever you’ll see it every day.
Look at your one-word resolution(s) multiple times a day and let it/them be your guide.
Here’s wishing you a healthy, happy, and profitable 2021. And if you have comments, questions, anecdotes, or anything else to share about today’s topic, leave me a comment in the box below.
