New year’s resolution: Write better resolutions 🎉
I know, I know: “You still actually think these work?” Yes. Yes, I do. I’ve been writing them and making progress on them for the past few years, so they’re a thing I like to do as the year winds down. And yes, I know—a year is an arbitrary period of time, but I find it’s a good time to reflect. Why not capitalize on the optimism we get at the turn of a new calendar? So, here are some of the considerations I make when I set my resolutions, and things I want to accomplish in general.
Disclaimer: I’m not an expert by any means and this process is neither universal nor is it absolute, but it’s some insight into how I approach resolutions.
There are two ways I approach this: When there’s something specific that I think I want to do, I like to distill it to its most fundamental truth and find out why I really want to do it. For example, next year, I want to try and read a bunch of biographies. In and out of bookstores, I’ve been thinking more about the value of biographies, and I’ve been drawn to the idea of reading about experiences that I’ll never be able to have. So, why do I want to read biographies? I want to read biographies to gain empathy and experience. This is more of a bottom-up approach. A top-down approach starts with a goal, where I think I know generally what I want to achieve, but don’t know how to achieve it. This year, I know I need to take better care of maintaining my mental health, but I don’t know how to get there yet, so this is my goal, and from there, I can figure out how I’m going to achieve it. Having a high-level goal helps keep me motivated and understand the meaning of what I’m achieving.
Q: What do I want to do?
A: Read biographies
Q: Why do I want to read biographies?
A: To gain empathy and experience
Goal: Read to gain empathy and experience
With a goal in mind, I dissect that goal down into what I can do to achieve a goal that might not be so objective. I might already have decided some of the actions from using the bottom-up approach, but it’s worth reflecting if there’s anything else I want to do in order to reach the goal. I like to keep actions quantifiable and explicit, like: What am I going to do? How often am I going to do it? When am I going to do it? For my goal of maintaining my mental health for example, I pledged to go to counselling once a month, keep a daily gratitude log, and meditate at least twice a week. Quantifiable and explicit.
Goal: Be better at maintaining my mental health
Actions: Go to counselling at least once a month, keep a daily gratitude log, and meditate at least twice a week.
Sometimes I think spreading a goal across a year is even too daunting for me. I really like checklists, and for some reason I keep them on a monthly basis, so I like to break down my goals month by month. In 2015, I resolved to get more involved in the UX and design community at the University, and I wanted to do that in two ways: getting involved in a leadership position in a UX club or organization, and working in human-computer interaction research. I knew that research positions opened up in April, so I added a checklist item for April to reach out to professors, and I put a “Reach out to clubs” checklist item in my immediate checklist, because I knew it was something I could start looking for right away. In my reading goals, I actually put like “Read 2 books” in my monthly checklist so it feels much more achievable than say, reading 24 books across the entirety of the year.
I realize this Wunderlist workflow is probably crazy.
Being disappointed by not meeting unrealistic expectations is a real downer and I find it especially tough to deal with when I’m creating new habits. In 2015, I didn’t already have a reading habit so it didn’t make sense for me to say I was going to read one book every week. Instead, I thought realistically about my reading pace and planned around the months that I was going to be in school. That year, I planned to read one book every month while I was in school and two books for every month out of school. The goal was lofty enough for me to feel challenged, but not overwhelming considering my school schedule.
5. Make plans to check in:
I’ve definitely set resolutions in the past and never tended to them again in the year. I like to write my resolutions somewhere where I can access them easily like a Wunderlist or a Dropbox Paper doc, and then I’ll set reminders to myself to check in and see my progress. In 2015, I only set a reminder for June, but this year, I plan on setting a bit of time to reflect every month. By reflecting often, I can adjust my plan and even decide to be more aggressive with my goals if I think it’s going well.
have i reached peak yuppy yet
What are some of your tips and tricks for resolutions? What works for you?
