Got Resolutions?

‘Tis the time of year for resolutions. We promise ourselves to do more of thing 1, stop doing thing 2, and for the first time in our lives we will absolutely make thing 3 a priority this year.

Then reality sets in and we often abandon these well-intentioned goals. In fact, January 10th is this year’s “Quitter’s Day,” a dubious name bestowed upon the second Friday of January marking the date by which many people have already left their resolutions behind.

I am all for changing and challenging yourself to improve. I have set resolutions in the past. Some years I have even been in the small minority of people who accomplish their goals. I still have a piece of paper with my 1989 resolutions and rows and rows of tally marks where I tracked my successful completion of a number of my resolutions. Through that experience and some wisdom gained since that time, I have the following tips about resolutions.

Tip 1: Give yourself grace. If you expect perfection, you will fail. We are imperfect people who have weak moments, faulty memories, and get tired and sick from time to time. In my experience, if I set the bar to perfection – do this thing every day without fail – then one slip or one missed day means I lost. Game over. It is demotivating. Once I learned enough about myself to give myself a little grace – do this thing 5 days out of 7 this week – I could strive for a daily habit, but if I fell short a time or two, I was still winning. The overall impact was that I was doing something 5 times a week that I wasn’t doing in the past. It was progress over perfection, and it was far more encouraging. It allowed me to build and keep momentum longer, and if I missed, I could restart knowing that I hadn’t already lost. It is a mind game to be sure, but the progress I made when there was a little bit of grace was far more than when I had to be “perfect” in my execution.

Tip 2: It’s not about the resolution. Okay, this one took me a long time to learn, but once it clicked, it made a big difference. Resolutions are not ends to themselves. They are a means for change, and that change is the important part. Once I understood that, I stopped making resolutions. Instead of aiming to hit a resolution, I focus on who I want to become.

That difference might look like this, for example. I can set a resolution to fully fund my IRA this year. I am over 50, so for me that would be $8,000 contributed to an IRA in 2025. Hitting that goal could be great, but it could also be either unattainable or too limiting. What if I only contribute $7,000? Did I fail? What if I have a $100,000 windfall and contribute $8,000 in the first month and blow the rest of the money? Did I succeed? The answer to both questions might be “no.”

If the intention behind the resolution was to become a person who is adept at saving money, saving $7,000 might be a big success. By the same logic, saving only 8% of a $100K windfall doesn’t seem to fit who I was aiming to become if I lavishly spend the other $92,000. If I want to be a person characterized by saving money, I should fund the IRA then turn around and find other ways to save and invest another portion of that windfall. It is not just a matter of hitting a goal, it about becoming who you want to be.

Tip 3: Statistics don’t matter. 61% of Americans made financial resolutions in 2024. Only 25% of people are still on track to hit their resolutions after one month. Fewer than 10% of people accomplish their resolutions for the year. 0% of that matters. What other people do or don’t do is not relevant to you. If you have decided in your gut to change, you can. One of my favorite quote is a bit lengthy, but powerfully captures this idea. It is from noted speaker Les Brown

If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace and sleep for it.

If all that you dream and scheme is about it, and life seems useless and worthless without it.

If you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it.

If you simply go after that thing that you want with all your capacity, strength and sagacity, faith, hope and confidence and stern pertinacity.

If neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout, sickness nor pain, of body and brain, can keep you away from the thing that you want.

If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it, with the help of God, YOU WILL GET IT!

– Les Brown

Don’t let the fact that others around you do or don’t succeed impact your success. If you are willing to set your sights on change and pursue it with voracity, you can change. Your change is up to you. If only 1% win, you determine if you are the 1% or the 99%.

Tip 4: History don’t matter. Please don’t tell Mrs. Bay, by dear sixth grade history teacher, but history doesn’t matter. If you have found it hard to achieve meaningful change in your life, that doesn’t mean you can’t change. I had never ridden a bike until the day I did. The fact that I had never ridden a bike didn’t define my future. History doesn’t define your future unless it stunts your belief that you can do something different or become someone different. Everything you have done was done for the first time at some point. That point became a line of demarcation marking the moment you went from “haven’t done it” to “have done it.” Failing once is not failing forever.

That’s a lot of philosophy for the new year. I share it because it has helped me as I have targeted growth areas in my life. As I change and grow, moving from striving for goals to becoming more of who I would like to be has been a freeing experience. I focus on developing character rather than checking off resolutions. If goals and resolutions are a path to your becoming who you want to be, certainly use them to your advantage. I have found focusing on the becoming to be more rewarding than checking a box and still not being who I want to be.

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