Eight Questions to Answer for a Better New Year’s Resolution

Joe Holder
·4 min read

We’ve reached the time of year where we are bombarded with messages about New Year’s resolutions. We get inspired, promise we are going to do better this year, and jump right into action—and I’m here to tell you that’s a huge mistake.

There’s a reason why New Year’s resolutions are said to have a high failure rate, 80 percent, with most people falling off by the time February rolls around. You get dejected, give up, and then the cultural attitude moves on to the next holiday and the next profitable pipedream—maybe the promise of love if you swipe correctly or buy the best type of flowers as Valentine’s Day arrives.

I want to introduce you to a better way to create a New Year’s resolution plan—or really a plan for any time of year—that you will actually stick to. But to do this you must actually pause and focus on the past before the future. All it takes is eight simple questions.

I've personally been through the struggle of promising myself some sort of new beginning, starting, and then failing again and again. At the end of 2017 I hit a massive wall and was teetering on the edge of burnout. Even though my career was going well I felt a bit off and was having a hard time improving not just my personal habits but even keeping track of the direction of my life as everything began to pile up. This is when the concept of the end of the year audit began to resonate with me and it has made my life, and the lives of those whom I have shared this framework with since then, much easier. Through this practice we pause and reflect on the past year and take an objective look at our lives to help us calmly understand the best way to move forward.

I believe there are eight key areas of health everyone should focus on that composes their life— it goes beyond the physical.

Physical: bodily well-being.

Mental: toughness and resilience.

Emotional: both regulation of internal feelings and finding love, spiritually, and joy.

Intellectual: pursuits that provide cognitive stimulation.

Environmental: the built and natural structures around you that can improve your well-being.

Occupational: you job and everyday professional engagements.

Financial: day to day money management and longer-term financial planning.

Social: friendships and culture.

I’m pretty sure any resolution you have falls under one of those categories. So take a second to think about why you want to change those areas and what you are looking to get out of it. The questions that follow will help you flesh out your “why” and put it into a course of directed action that will produce results. One of my favorite professors in college often remarked that it’s not risk that humans are afraid of, it’s uncertainty. And the reason why things fail is because we don’t perform due diligence by asking specific questions that help provide clarity and increase the likelihood of positive results. So let’s use these questions to help you ace your New Year goals.

Looking back on the previous year, what are the areas that I want to improve or work on? What did I try last year that did or didn’t work?

Be focused here. Do not simply say “everything”. Give yourself time to focus on one or two subjects first and be clear with objectives.

Of the areas I have chosen to focus on, what are the specific items within each that I want to improve and can I measure them?

For example, if you chose physical health, could you get a blood test that helps you understand your base vitals? If it is something more qualitative, such as “improve energy,” then use a scale of 1-10—write down how you feel right now.

Who or what is going to help me?

Use this opportunity to build your team or your toolkit. Utilize experts, free services, and strategic purchases to enhance your likelihood of success.

What are the actions I am going to institute and try out for improvement?

List the habits, tactics, or plans you are going to use for the areas of focus you have decided on.

How long is it going to take me and how much time do I have available to dedicate to these goals right now?

Be realistic. You don’t want to come up with a good plan but an awful strategy–if the tactics you’ve chosen cannot honestly be applied it is a bad strategy. Develop a course of action you can actually do.

Now based upon all the answers above, all you have to do is create your “class” assignments and put them in your calendar, notes, and brain accordingly. There is no guess work here. You know what you want to do, have laid out the specific behaviors that will help you get there, and how much time you have. After that we simply schedule a periodic check in to reevaluate if what we are doing is working until we reach our goal or have fully integrated our desired behavior into our routine.

What has improved or not improved?

Which tactics are working? Which are not working?

What actions should I change or keep the same?

Rinse and repeat.

Happy New Year. New day. New week, month, whatever. Time to realize every moment is a chance to take the desired step to become who you fully want to be. The framework above is a great place to start.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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