New Year’s Resolution? No thanks! ??

Like many others, I struggle with keeping a New Year’s Resolution. A couple of years ago, I switched things up a bit. If you're interested, here’s what I?do.

1. Break Down The Year into?Quarters

A year is very hard to visualize and plan out. Roughly one can maybe, but it’s unachievable to do in all its detail. To link long-term goals with tangible milestones, I created a roadmap — like a product roadmap. Where do you want to be in 3 years (roughly)? Break it down to the end of 2023 (in an achievable goal). Then break that down into quarterly goals. Every three months, I create a details plan for that quarter. That, I can visualize. I check in, review the past quarter, and adjust the direction. The main benefit here is that you can reflect, succeed, and fail several times a year. Better restart again in April than wake up in December realizing I lost a whole year!

If you’re keen to read more about this approach, I can highly recommend the book ?? 12 Week Year .

2. Link your Goals with Easy?Targets

Now that I have my goals laid out in quarters, how do I get to a level of detail within the quarter??

Let's say I want to live healthier as a long-term goal. To get there I need to lose 10 pounds / 5 kg this quarter. I can try to stop eating sweets, eat healthier, exercise more, etc. There are so many ways to tackle the same outcome. However, I cannot track this by standing on my bathroom scale. My weight is a lagging indicator. It only tells me how I did behave in the past few days/weeks, not how I did / will do today. In addition, everybody’s weight fluctuates day by day due to other factors. It basically tells me where I am, not where I am going.

Hence, I want to set a leading indicator: an easily trackable target, which first and foremost I can influence every single day but also secondly contributes to the long-term goal. In this example, I try being at a caloric deficit of over 200 kcal per day. This packs both nutrition and exercise into one easily trackable daily target.

?? Kurtis "KP" Pykes ’s Medium Post “Don’t Just Set Goals. Build Systems” in which he breaks literally down for you how to go about a few common goals and the system to achieve them.

3. Persistence — Keep going with the 2-Day?Rule

Now to the tough part. After all this planning, I have to do it. And I failed often. Thanks to breaking the year down into something tangible, I know where I failed! If I missed it yesterday, I reset it and try to tackle it today.

A business trip usually throws me out of rhythm. In 2023, I’ll try to apply the 2-Day rule in 2023. “The Two-Day Rule means never taking off more than a one-day break from a good habit or a productive routine.” ?? Here’s the full blog post by David Henzel

If you’re keen to read up more on how to change, I can always recommend ?? Atomic Habits or a book I read recently by Katy Milkman on ?? How to Change .

Prefer a podcast instead? Listen to the ?? Hidden Brain episode with Katy Milkman “You, but Better” on how we can use our minds to do what’s good for us.

4. Reflection — Do a Review Regularly

You can’t get better if you do not look back. Now might be a great time (no matter when you read this. yes. now!). I started using ?? Reflection.app , which is a nice tool for daily journaling and guides the user through monthly/annual reviews.

If you prefer a simple, quick hack, I also like Tim Ferriss ’s ?? Past Year Review , in which you go through your calendar and write down every person, activity, or commitment that made that month stand out positively or negatively. In the end, you plan the upcoming year with that list — more of the good things, less of the bad. What I like the most from Tim’s PYP: “It’s not real until it’s in the calendar.”