How are you getting on with your New Year’s Resolutions?

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions for 2024? Have you already given up some of them, a few days into January?

Some people benefit from setting high and ambitious goals. But you might not be one of them. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t bring about change in your life. Let’s look at how.

What you do every day is what matters

If you made any resolutions on New Year’s Eve, what did you decide to do before the end of 2024? Run a marathon? Quit smoking? Earn £100,000? Lose four stone?

Good job! That’s what most motivational gurus tell you to do. Aim high. Set ambitious goals. Tell everyone you know about it so you can’t back out. Never look back until you reach your goals.

When the fireworks are done, everyday life kicks in. The grey, ordinary days. And the end of 2024 seems so far away.

Well, what you do every ordinary day is what matters if you want to change your life. Not glossy, champagne-infused resolutions on New Year’s Eve.

You can start anytime

So, you’re not entirely happy with yourself or your life?

Start making the necessary changes now! Why wait until New Year’s Eve (“This year is going to be different!”) or your birthday (“God, I’m 59 already!”)?

Any day of the week will do. Start moving!

But in which direction?

Find your direction

Think about this:

• Who do you want to be in the future? Not only at the end of 2024 but for the rest of your life.
• How will your life be when you have become who you want to be?
• What do you need to be happy in this life?
• What are the realistic paths you can take towards that life?

By doing this, you are creating a personal vision to guide you forward.

Now you can think about goals

Setting goals for what you want to achieve in 2024 is okay. That’s what a project manager would call a milestone, something that can help you check in and see if you’ve been moving in your chosen direction.

But you’ll never reach that milestone if you don’t know what tasks you must do today and this week. 

If you want to run a marathon this year, you’ll have to know how much you need to exercise every week from now on. If you start checking in on your progress in October, it’s probably too late.

What you do every day is essential. A long journey consists of thousands of individual steps. But you can’t skip any of them if you want to arrive at your chosen destination.

What if you fail?

So what? Most likely, you will fail. At least now and then.

Imagine you’ve quit smoking. One evening, you’re stressed, drunk, or both, and have a cigarette. You can think of this in two ways:

• “I knew it! Might as well give up!”
• “That shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Let’s get back on track. No more smoking for me.”

Failure is an opportunity to learn

“A failure is only a failure if you learn nothing from it.”

Thomas Alva Edison allegedly said this. So, learn what you can do differently the next time and keep moving towards your destination.

Sh*t happens. That’s a fact.

Sometimes, sh*t happens because of things outside your control, and sometimes, you mess things up. After all, you’re human and live in an unpredictable world.

And sometimes, you find you’ve chosen unachievable goals. Or, you reach a goal and realise this isn’t really what you wanted.

Flexibility is more important than strength

You can’t control everything that has an impact on your achievements. If you, for instance, decide to go out running every day, you can’t stop a storm from coming or yourself from falling ill.

It doesn’t matter much. Goals are only a guiding light to keep you going in the right direction. Use them, but don’t let your life depend on them. Unexpected things happen. Recharge and start again when possible.

Flexibility also means you can adjust your goals or even your direction if necessary. You learn along your journey; when you learn, you change and grow. The goals and visions you had one year ago, let alone your childhood dreams, might not be what you want and need anymore.

Courage is more important than confidence

You want to change your life, but you haven’t even started. You don’t believe you’re up to it.

Don’t wait for a miraculous surge of self-confidence. Because self-confidence doesn’t just “happen”. Confidence is built through succeeding in what you are doing. You must try, and try again if you occasionally fail, to succeed and gain confidence.

So try, even if it’s scary. Courage is taking the first step, the next, and the next, even if you’re scared. When you succeed, you build confidence. When you fail, you can learn how to succeed the next time.

2024 is a leap year. You have one extra ordinary day (the 29th of February) you can make use of to change your life. Ordinary days are what matters!

Happy New Year, and good luck.

A quick look at other people’s New Year’s Resolutions

YouGov did a UK survey in early December, asking, “Will you be making any New Year’s Resolutions for 2024?”

Only 16% of the population said they would make resolutions for the coming year. However, young people are more eager to make such resolutions than older people. While 29% of the age group 18 – 24 replied yes, only 6 % of those above 65 did.

Have older people learned through experience that setting high goals alone won’t change their lives? Or is this an indication of resignation? Do older people believe it’s too late to make changes? If so, that’s sad. It’s never too late!

YouGov also asked: “And did you make any New Year’s Resolutions for the year 2023?”

Here, 11% of the total population answered “yes”, while 22% of the age group 18 – 24 and 4% of the age group 65+ did.

Is it really so that fewer people made New Year’s Resolutions for 2022 than for 2024? Have people generally become much more optimistic about changing their lives? It’s hard to believe so. Could it be that abandoned resolutions for 2023 are easily and conveniently forgotten?

Let’s look at the outcome for those who remembered they made New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. YouGov asked: “How many, if any, of the resolutions you made for 2023 have you managed to keep?”

Interesting. Even though younger people make more resolutions, older people are better at keeping them.

Could it be that age brings the wisdom to see that changes are achieved through the small things we do every single day, every bleak Tuesday or Thursday, and not through the big promises we make to ourselves on New Year’s Eve?