New Year's Resolutions: Just Say No

And just like that, the New Year is upon us!?

For HR and Finance professionals, it’s a sense of relief from the barrage of end-of-year requirements, but also the immediate creep of new-year anxieties.?

What’s coming at us next?!?Only time (and our employees…and the market…and our legislative bodies…oh, and public health crises) will tell!?Ultimately, it’s inevitable that there is pressure in the unknown that a new year brings.?What’s interesting to me, however, is at this time when we’re already stressed out both professionally and personally (can we normalize NOT having Instagram-perfect holidays??), many people are opting to put additional and undue pressure on themselves by setting lofty, lengthy, and often unattainable goals.?Insert: NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS.?

Who came up with this concept of needing to significantly reinvent ourselves on a certain (and quite honestly arbitrary) date??Before I’m ripped down from this soapbox, let me clarify that I LOVE goals.?Ask my boss and he’ll tell you that I live by my goals.?But New Year’s resolutions aren’t goals, they’re a recipe for failure.?

Let’s look at your typical New Year’s resolutions:?

I’m going to lose weight! ?How much??By when??Is your current lifestyle and situation allowing the ability to lose weight??

I’m going to get organized!?Talk about lofty!?What area of your life needs to be organized??How will you measure your degree of organization??Is this an immediate or gradual improvement??

See where I’m going with this??These annual resolutions, while fun to set and sometimes successful, are ultimately setting us up for disappointment.?And so, by mid-February, we’re often back to old habits and adding yet another year to our list of failed New Year’s promises.

What’s the alternative??I’d suggest if you’re firmly planted in the pro-resolution camp, rewrite your resolutions to reflect the SMART method: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.?You’re more likely to keep, or at least extend, those resolutions.?

Or conversely, take my approach.?Personally, I choose to re-commit each year to some defined ongoing daily aspirations.?I focus on continuing my path of personal and professional ongoing improvement.?Not over the course of a year, nor set on an arbitrary date, but daily. ?

I work on goals that translate both personally and professionally…always looking for that convenient shortcut!

Don’t over-commit.?

From a personal aspect, I have a tendency to always be planning something and additionally, I say yes to any requests from friends and family.?I then struggle with being burned out and am emotionally exhausted.?Let’s not even add the whole being a parent aspect to this…?

From a professional aspect, I struggle with delegation and tend to take on a lot.??As someone who has been diagnosed with high-functioning ADHD and anxiety, it makes sense that I have the compulsion to be involved in many areas, but then get worried about letting anything go.?I’m working daily to strike an appropriate balance and to get comfortable passing items on to others.?

Admittedly, this is the daily aspiration that I progress most slowly on…so especially in this area, I’m a work in progress!

Live in the moment.?

From a personal aspect, and no doubt related to my anxiety, I focus daily on staying in the moment and not lamenting how quickly the years have passed with my now pre-teens, nor worrying about how quickly these next 9 years will pass.?This is less of a daily aspiration and more of an hourly one.?I’ll go back to that work-in-progress comment...?In the meantime, please pass the tissues.

From a professional aspect, the new year brings new goals, new challenges, and new anxieties for someone who consistently holds herself to standards that are probably unhealthy.?I’m focusing daily on giving myself grace, recognizing that I can’t control every outcome, and celebrating all of the amazing accomplishments that I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of.?This daily aspiration isn’t one that I can accomplish on my own, however.?I’m truly fortunate to have a team of colleagues who help me to focus on our wins and be excited about what’s to come.?I highly suggest surrounding yourself with people who support you as much as you support them!

Be authentic.

From a personal aspect, the last few years have been challenging!?To say there were different opinions on a number of very significant public issues is an understatement.?In some cases, this resulted in a distancing of relationships.?And while I miss the “easier” times, I recognize that I need to continue to focus on the values I hold closely.?I suspect this will not get easier anytime soon, if at all.?But reaffirming what I believe and why I believe it is key to being okay with letting go of some connections.

From a professional aspect, I sit here getting a bit emotional thinking about the number of people who have reached out over the past year expressing appreciation for my posts. ?In case it’s not evident, I love writing and have felt empowered to be open with my perspective on a number of different issues that impacted both employers and employees, including our own HR Works employees.?“I appreciate that you wrote about this because I was struggling too.”?That’s a message that I’ll not forget and it will continue to inspire me to share my authentic self.

So, my point? It’s time to let go of that 6 years and counting resolution and instead focus on what your long-term daily aspirations are. ?It’s not a perfect approach, but perfection isn’t the goal, continuous improvement is.?And when you aspire for ongoing improvement, you, too, can become a proud work in progress!?????