5 Reasons Not to Make New Year’s Resolutions
Anyone who knows me or has read Scrum for Your Life knows that I am not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, for the most part, I think they’re useless. There are simply better, more effective ways to achieve your goals. Even if you don’t use Scrum for Your Life, consider these reasons why you shouldn’t make any resolutions this year.
The goal is usually too big. People set out on the new year to do something like lose 20 pounds, start a new business or write that novel. Goals this big are fine, but provide no path to success. Your brain cannot consume something that big and when February comes around and you’ve only made meager progress, you’ll be discouraged and are likely to give up.
Waiting a year to achieve a goal is too long. Even if in the rare case that you follow through on your resolution, the reward 12 months down the road is too long to provide positive reinforcement for your efforts.
Situations change. Imagine if your goal on January 1, 2020 was to open a restaurant. Three months later COVID would have put you out of business. It is necessary to adapt when things like this come up, and while under any circumstances this would be difficult, being more flexible and aligned with a greater value could allow you to continue by thinking of other ways to satisfy that value while COVID restrictions were in place.
Most of the time, they just don’t work. Making a resolution on New Year’s Day may make you feel good and you may be optimistic about your success. You may even be excited about getting started. But think back to last year. How did that work out?
Resolutions are often not thought through. They may even be impulsive. They may sound noble and even BE noble, but why are you making it? Living in alignment with your values will help you create more meaningful goals.
What should you do instead? The first thing to do is ask yourself what values are important to you. Then choose goals that align with these values. Once you have established this, set a goal that can be completed in no more than four weeks. When the four weeks are over, you will have something complete to celebrate. Your brain will be happy and you can set another goal (or goals) that can be completed in less than four weeks. Repeat this 12 times in 2021 and you will achieve much more than you could with any resolution. In the process, you will be building your goal-achieving muscles and increasing your self-confidence while living a happier, more intentional life.
Happy New Year!