Organize Your Life: The Truth About Resolutions, Goals, Habits, and Words of the Year
A new year begins and we give ourselves absolution for everything that has happened previously: our diets, our habits, our clutter. We have this vision that the true version of us isn’t reflected by everything we’ve ever been, but who we could become. Whether that mindset is more a matter of naiveté or positivity doesn’t matter as much as figuring out how we can transform this vision of who we want to be into a reality where we can say, this is who we truly are. So how do we get there?
RESOLUTIONS
New Year’s resolutions tend to come in two flavors. We promise ourselves we will change some behavior or personal trait (quit smoking, swear less, be nicer to our mothers, etc.) or accomplish some personal goal (run a 5K, learn Italian, knit a sweater). Making resolutions dates back ancient times. For example, the Babylonians apparently promised the gods they would return borrowed objects and repay debts. (Perhaps that resolution came from having achieved the prior year’s resolution to declutter, during which they found all the things they’d borrowed?)
In the United States, the ritual of making resolutions has actually increased over time, from about 25% of the population to over 40%. The biggest advantage I see in making resolutions is that it allows us to start the new year in a motivated, positive way – generally, at a time when the weather, our weights, our checking accounts, and our moods are fairly frightful. The disadvantage, however, is that most of us abandon our resolutions somewhere between February and June.
Resolutions tend to fizzle because of a few reasons: the real world (that is, the same things that kept us from maintaining our resolve last year) gets in the way, we haven’t identified working strategies for achieving our resolutions, or we have resolved to do something because we think we should rather than because we really want to do it.
If you’d like some inspiration for developing new or different resolutions, the Daring to Live Fully blog offers 29 New Year’s Resolution Ideas that go beyond the typical, with some motivational notions for volunteering, being more conscientious, and bringing more peace into your life. Lifehack has 50 New Year’s Resolution Ideas and How To Achieve Each of Them to help get you started. From adopting a pet to getting over an ex, there are enough choices to help you make this next year a little more interesting.
GOALS AND HABITS
Goals are the less shiny versions of resolutions. Nobody announces “New Year’s Goals” with a flourish or breathlessly asks celebrities about their “New Year’s Habits.” But goals provide a big-picture framework, and habits develop the muscles to accomplish those goals.
SMART goals are popular because they identify where resolutions and plans have might otherwise fail without precautions. SMART goals are supposed to be:
- Specific (What are you going to do? Use action verbs!)
- Measurable (What metrics will you use to show you’ve done what you said you’d do?)
- Achievable (Is this a practical goal? Is it realistic?)
- Relevant (Does this goal make sense for your life, family, or business?)
- Time-based (When will you start? When will you do the action? When will you repeat it? When will you finish? Remember, “Someday” is not a day on the calendar!)
You may want to lose weight, pay off debt, find a significant other, or grow your business, but the way to get there can’t be vague. Make sure your goals spell out what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, and how you’re going to measure your success.
Goals set the rules and create the game plan, but habits are how you get to the finish line. The reason you lose your keys all the time is because you don’t have a habit of always putting your keys in the same place every time you come home. (Or, I guess, you’ve got a hole in your pocket.)
Habits are settled or repeated tendencies. Bad habits become like second nature (which makes them hard to break). Luckily, good habits are hard to break, too! That means that if you can get in the habit, so to speak, repeating positive, healthy tasks, you stand a much better chance of achieving your goals.
Two superior resources for understanding how habits work, and how you can put them to use in your life, are:
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – This eminently readable modern classic walks you through the research and the practical ways you can use habits to strengthen the chance you’ll achieve your goals. The essence is that every habit has a cue-routine-reward loop, and if you can modify or enhance your routine based on a cue (depending on whether you want to cut out the bad stuff or do more of the good stuff), you can make an improvement.
Duhigg also talks about keystone habits, a notion that if we start or modify a habit and regularly participate, there’s a halo effect. Families who have a habit of eating together, for example, find that their kids do better in school and have more confidence. Making your bed every day allegedly correlates with being more productive, getting better at sticking to a budget, and having a greater sense of well-being.
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
Like New Year’s Eve parties themselves, resolutions are formal, fizzy, and soon forgotten. Goals and habits are the workhorses of achievement. But what if you’re looking to change your life in a more flexible, unrestricted way?
In the past decade, a different approach to organizing the year began to take hold. The concept? The Word of the Year! Ta Da!
The idea is that rather than defining in advance what you will accomplish or envisioning the specifics of how you will change your life, the word of the year is more fluid. You identify a word that encapsulates the emotional heft of what you want your year to look and feel like, and you use the word to help you focus your efforts. This word can be serious or lighthearted, as long as it focuses on what you want to do, have, or be. In this regard, I suspect Steve Martin’s grandmother was ahead of the curve.
If your word is “delight” and you have to make a decision regarding which of two options to choose, you could ask yourself, will this delight me? If you select the word “contribute” and you recognize yourself spending a little too much time on social media, always having your focus word in the back of your mind (or on the front of your fridge) may prompt you to see how you can better use your time (or your mind) to contribute in a way that resonates for you.
There are a few ways to identify your word of the year. You could ask yourself, “What was I missing last year? What would have given me strength or self-confidence or a better grip on my emotional well-being?”
Alternatively, you could start with your goal in mind and think of words that resonate based on that. Let’s say you want to earn more money and keep within your budget. For some people, that straightforward goal yields the desired structure; for others (those who find the word “structure” to be a bit depressing or at least constricting), selecting a word that encapsulates those goals, like “abundance,” might be just the ticket.
Of course, you don’t have to come up with your word on your own, as there are many bloggers who have created lists from which to choose:
Word of the Year Ideas for 2019 – The Goal Chaser site offers up 300+ enticing word options, and blogger Gem even shares How to Make Your “Word of the Year” Really Stick.
Word of the Year Discovery Tool from superstar coach Christine Kane isn’t merely a list of words (though there’s a healthy bounty of those). The downloadable PDF also explains how intention is the key to using these kinds of focus words and warns about the pitfalls that can sink the success of your word of the year. The tool also includes some worksheets for developing your own way of identifying the right word.
Inc. Magazine has 5 Tips for Choosing Your Word of the Year, while Boston lifestyle blogger Elisabeth McKnight shares her own experiences with selecting words of the years and suggests 100 words from which you might choose.
But Paper Doll, you ask, what if one word isn’t enough?!
We’ve got you covered.
Mike Vardy, The Productivityist, picks three words rather than one and in doing so has motivated many people to expand their approach to focus words. Here are his 2018, 2017, and 2016 posts about his trio of words. (Mike also has theme-word months, so he’s the king of motivational focus words!)
As a result of Mike’s encouragement, I selected “Love, Learn, Launch” as my three words back in 2017, and it struck some interesting chords throughout that year.
Media guru Chris Brogan has been selecting three words for more than a decade and details his process in 3 Words 2018. Meanwhile, Gem of the Goal Chaser site mentioned above has actually picked four words for 2019. (Eventually, someone’s going to pick an entire dictionary!)
MANTRAS
Finally, there’s a plan for people who fall in the middle, those for whom resolutions or goals are too structured for what they want to achieve, but single words (or even trios) are too abstract. For them, a Mantra of the Year may be ideal.
With a mantra, a repeated statement or slogan of a more spiritual (or at least inspirational) bent, you can self-soothe, motivate, and have a clearer sense of the vision you want your actions to reflect.
12 Mantras for the New Year from Mantra Jewelry’s blog has quite a few that provide a breath of fresh air, and I quite like, “I trust in new beginnings” and “I breathe in calmness, I breathe out stress.”
Positive Mantras to Live By For a “New Year, New You” from Cloud 9 Living has a variety of mantras at the end of the article, but “Appreciate More, Complain Less” seems like a worthy and inspirational focus that echoes the attitude of gratitude so often recommended for good mental health.
15 Self-Care Mantras for 2019 That Will Help You Be Kinder To Yourself from Bustle Magazine looks at the new year mantra as a way to combat the negativity that seems to permeate everything from politics to social media to the line at the coffee shop. In some ways, mantras like “I am free to be myself” and “I know who I am and I am enough” seem to be the opposite of the resolutions and goals designed to change who we are. Meanwhile, “With this breath, I release anything that no longer serves me” might be the perfect mantra to pair with all those resolutions and goals helping to break bad habits.
So, what approach appeals to you? Do you make resolutions? Do you have a word or mantra? (To be honest, I’m still working on mine for 2019.)
Dear readers, whether you choose a resolution, a goal (with habits), a word, many words, or a mantra, or you decide that you are nifty just the way you are, I wish you a happy and healthy year!
Paper Doll Post:
So many fascinating resources – I can’t imagine how much time you spend researching! I’ve bookmarked several of these links to explore more fully later on.
Thank you so much, Janet. I do love to do the research, but sometimes I wonder if my mantra should be, “Stop saying SO much.” 😉
Wow, Julie! That’s a lot of great information and resources. Both of the books you mentioned (Duhigg’s and Clear’s) I’ve read and loved. Your descriptions were excellent.
Over the years, I’ve tried many of the “resolution” concepts that you described. However, this year I am trying something different (and not on your list.) I’m setting an intention in the form of a question. My intention question is, “What will I say ‘yes’ to this year? But the qualifying to the question is really what interesting opportunities or events will I say yes to without deliberation and doubt. Even though we’re only a few weeks into the New Year, I’ve had a chance to respond to this a few times now, and it’s been liberating.
What an intriguing approach, Linda! Indeed, I can’t wait to hear what you WILL say yes to in 2019! And thank you for the lovely words!