Why You Won’t Keep Your 2020 Resolutions

‘Winners never quit and quitters never win.’ You might have heard this famous quote attributed to Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest football coaches in American history. Yet, according to the popular social fitness digital app, Strava, ‘Quitter’s Day’ as it’s been called, falls on the 19^th of 2020 (moving up two days from January 17^th, 2019). This is the day when the large majority of people – some studies estimate up to a whopping 80% – give up on their new year’s resolutions completely. Does that mean that this huge portion of the population will never win? What causes them to throw in the towel? And why did they do so soon, less than three weeks after resolving to their goals?

Personally, I don’t think there is a problem with quitting in its essence. There are many situations where I believe quitting is the option that has the less adverse consequences, and that the excessively praised and lauded ‘grit’ and persistence do more harm than good. For example, being stuck in a dead-end, soul-crushing job, taking the tough but crucial decision to pivot a product in the start-up phase or investing in a business that continues to suffer financial losses with no turnaround point in sight. Those are just a few examples when cutting your losses and quitting could have major advantages. The ability to call it quits, is as important a skill as are perseverance and determination to power through obstacles in life, business and relationships. But why quit a goal that you voluntarily and, sometimes even enthusiastically, set for yourself less than three weeks ago? That’s only about 0.05% a 52-week year!

I feel like the fact that people feel the need to set out and make New Year’s resolutions in the first place, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, is the very reason why they quit. Decades of best-selling self-help books and business management strategies that have skyrocketed in popularity, emphasize the importance of setting and achieving goals and objectives. What can’t be measured can’t be improved, they say. While that might work sometimes in the business world (and possibly not for very much longer in the face of the rapidly changing dynamic of how businesses operate, especially with the proliferation of IOT in almost every industry) should not be applicable to our personal lives. In the same way large organizations and corporates have been taught how to set goals, we go about doing the same not realizing that there is a difference between an individual and an organization. The goals might be very smart; that’s an acronym for: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based. However, every day since their inception, they die slowly up to their inevitable demise. If we take its ginormous failure rate into consideration, it seems that there is something inherently flawed with this process.

So does this mean we shouldn’t set New Year’s goals and resolutions? The short answer is Yes and No. I believe we set New Year’s Resolutions that are relevant to what we wish to be or fantasize about being rather than true, genuine goals. Even though some goals are important, non-negotiable and pretty much universal: like being healthier, exercising more often and saving a set amount of your income. They might not what you really want and even if they did, they mean strikingly different things for different people. Getting fit or eating healthy are very vague loose terms that have a wide and ambiguous spectrum. This is the issue with ‘standard’, canned, out-of-the box goals.

Instead of setting a New Year’s Resolution, I think it is more important to ask why you want to achieve the particular goal. In his book ‘Start with Why’, author Simon Sinek talks about how great leaders inspire others by putting the ‘why’ first. This concept could be extended to personal goals. You are the leader of your life, and therefore, you too must start with why. Why you’re setting this goal and why is it important to you. Is it even important?

When you take the time to reflect and think, when you are true to yourself and your goals, you will not need to set New Year’s Resolutions. Your goals will manifest, just the way they should be. The most important goals in life, the goals worth dying for, ironically are the same ones that are worth living for. These goals are too personal to be put in a goal model. Problems start to happen when setting goals that you do not really care about.

When a goal is true and genuine, you wouldn’t have to write it on paper or set a time frame for it. It won’t have to fit into a SMART goal mold. It will just be. In its own time. But won’t it be measurable? It won’t have to be measurable. Measurable is for impersonal goals that you are forced to achieve, personal goals will just happen. As long as you’re doing your best. And you WILL do your best. Because it is a true goal.

This is why if you have, like millions of other people, quit on Quitter’s Day, don’t beat yourself up about it. Take a day or two and think about it your resolutions. Do you really, genuinely, truly want them?  If not, what do you truly want to achieve? And then, don’t set a plan to achieve it. Because you’ll most probably find that you will or you’ve been working on your goal all year long.

By Alwaleed Osman