Making a New Year’s Resolution and Keeping It
The story of new year resolutions is well experienced by many, and I am no exception. Till four years back, I had a familiar routine. I would spend 1st of week January setting up the resolution and last two weeks of December identifying how life got hard on me, which resulted in unfulfillment. Bought several annual gym memberships, nice gear to get active, a lofty magazine subscription to stay updated and so on. Story of missed resolution continued year on year, and I had reached a level acceptance that resolutions are meant for not fulfilling.
This acceptance did the trick. At the same time also read about some stuff about OKRs and decided to give it a try. This was four years back.
2017 I started with the resolution of getting back to reading. And I needed a crossing line which will tell me I am on track. So started with a modest goal of 4 books. I had just bought Kindle, and I will be honest, it was for the sake of buying, but now that I had wanted to make most of it. Ended up year reading six books and blogs. It was hard work especially when there’s so much else vying for that timeslot including kids and TV. But I managed, and My confidence increased.
Charged with this success, came 2018 and I said to myself will write 12 blogs. Failed miserably could write 3 or 4 max but nothing worked. I had even gone and committed to even my friends for it, hoping for social pressure. No luck, back to square one.
Only good thing I had learnt in these two years is to measure what matters to determine if I am on track.
Powered with that learning 2019 was a relatively lame goal, reduce the use of plastic. Collectively signed up for this with my partner. I was travelling for work heavily, so most of the usage was use and throw plastic water bottles which I would get at hotels and need during travel. I bought a couple of durable water bottles and made a habit of carrying everywhere. Here’s my companion since then. That year as a family, we purchased six (maybe a higher number for those who use zero) plastic water bottles during my 100 days of work travel and around 12 days of family travel to various places.
I was tracking Monthly on how much is my use. and unlike previous years goal for 2019 was committed to in Dec-2018 itself.
Work pressure was mounting that year, travel was taking a toll on everything, and my body was reacting to the pressure. That was bothering me. So a sensible goal for 2020 was to get in a better shape, a fitter myself. Signed up for running as an activity. I had learnt to be intentional about it now, joined a group around the neighbourhood in Dec. Tried it, assessed me and set up the target 220 days of exercise. Two hundred twenty days were divided into running and strength training required for running (this was my group’s schedule, nothing I could do about it). Remaining 140 days, I kept for myself, sort of hack you could say to accommodate laziness and recovery)
Finished 2020 with ~150 runs and 223 days of activities. And this I must thank god for the coincidence of choosing this goal. It was the best goal I could have chosen for the covid year.
So in 2020 cumulative impact of past years resolutions, Read 12 books, purchased one non-reusable plastic bottle and 220 days of active exercise.
Reflecting over these years, Trying to decode what worked (I guess) -
- Getting intentional about your resolution. Think about resolutions carefully as to how they will help you.
- Focus on 1 or 2 max; bake it in the lifestyle than treating it as a task
- Tracking it religiously. Monthly, Weekly, Daily — whatever frequency you can achieve, Daily is the best — it is the perfect mirror.
- Find support — engage with your family, communities who keep you going.
- Have intermediate milestones and rewards for them too.
