Goals vs. Resolutions (& How to Actually Achieve Them)

With resolutions, people are either like, “Yay, resolutions!” or they're like, “Oh, screw resolutions.” 

And I think a lot of the time, it's because we view resolutions as “going to the gym” at the New Year when everyone else also shows up for two weeks and then quits. It sort of feels like, if I make a resolution, I'm just setting myself up for failure. So why even bother, right?

But I think there's a better way.

Instead of resolutions, I would encourage you to think of setting goals.

And here’s the real clincher: don’t just set the goals, but also follow up on those goals with habits to make sure the goals are reached.

“Resolutions” Have Feelings. “Goals” Have Plans.

When I think of resolutions, I think of something not very formal – a general intention.

For example, I might resolve to support local agriculture and farms. It would be nice to possibly get a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture share) of veggies this summer. I could go to the winter farmers market and try out some different farms. I could also ask around and look into some different farms and look at their CSA plans. I put the dates of the market on my calendar so I can go when I feel like it.

But there’s no real measurement behind it, nothing to say what “success” means for trying it out.

I haven’t said I’m measuring how many times this year I went to the farmers market or what percentage of our produce was local versus not.

I'm simply resolving to support local agriculture.

Now let's say you resolve to make more money in the next fiscal year. 

Great resolution. 

But that's very vague, right? It leaves things open in a way that is not really going to be the most helpful. 

“More” could be just $1 more but that’s not really what you mean. If you made $25k last year, do you want to make $35k, $50k, or $100k? Those are all very different ambitions! 

“Make more money” is a resolution. 

But it's really important to get specific about your target. That’s the difference that makes it a goal.

Break How You Get There Down to Small Steps

So maybe a goal is to end next year with 500 people on your email list, and you’re starting the year with 100. So you have to get 400 over the course of the year. 

A goal will have a plan behind it! 

• So how many would that be per quarter? 100 every three months.

• So how many a month? A little over 30 a month.

• So how many a day? About a person a day.

Okay, so now you’ve got your small-step measurement targets.

And there's a lot of actual ways that you can get people on your list, right? 

Maybe you have a free opt-in, or multiple free opt-ins, or maybe you’re going to run a webinar or a training series or a challenge or anything else. There’s lots of paths you could take to get where you want to go.

No matter how you choose to get there, you need to be thinking about your specific goal as you take action. So with this example, you have to remind people of the newsletter, and so you integrate that into every CTA. 

Because you actually have something you can measure, you can actually look at the big picture and the steps to get there. And then you know what to work on each day, each week, each month to get you closer to the goal. 

Now, sometimes the goal has more possible ways to measure movement. Revenue is like this. You might get there by an unexpected path. Or you might end up missing it but get close, or you might shoot right past it.

But the key thing to remember is you want to actually know and have some intention about where you want to go so you can figure out what you want to work on each day.

And then if you're tracking it, you can see what's working and what isn't, what needs to be adjusted and what you can double down on.

I know this makes some people anxious, which is why you should set the target that seems right to you. I'm not gonna say make a big, hairy, scary goal if that’s actually demotivating. 

The Habit Part

Atomic Habits is a great book by James Clear that talks about why connecting habits to your goals is effective. Once something is a habit, then it's a habit and you’re doing it on autopilot, right?

So let's just use something really simple as an example.

Let’s say you want to read 12 personal development books this year.

A resolution says, “I want to read more.” And that’s great but also vague.

A goal says, “I want to read 12 personal development books because I want to work on my mindset.”

Maybe you're not an avid reader. Maybe you are busy: you've got kids, you've got your business, you've got life! Maybe in the last year, you only read four books and now you're wondering how you’re going to do this!

This is where habits come in.

So if you're like, “Well, I always say I want to read more. And I always say that I'll read more when I have time or I'll read at the end of the day.” And you find it's not happening because the end of the day comes and you're exhausted, you feel like you have no time to read, right?

Instead of just saying that you will read 12 books, you say that you will read 1 book a month, to break it down into small steps.

And then you have to figure out, when will you fit that in? This is where finding a habit that works for you is going to come in handy.

Do you want to read first thing in the morning? If your mornings are too crazy, what about lunch break? Could you have a time after dinner when everything is cleaned up where you could sit and set a timer for 15 minutes and read? Or is it maybe that the weekdays are just totally frantic and chaotic and you are going to treat yourself to Sunday mornings in a coffee shop and you read for an hour?

When you have a plan, when you make it a daily or a weekly habit, then you’ll get the steps to reach your goal done!

Find the Unexpected Path

No matter what your steps are to get to your goal, and what habit you’re trying to build, it’s a good idea to try to find the unexpected or unusual ways to get there that work especially for you.

When I was younger, I would carry a backpack or a giant purse with me to carry a book. And instead of killing time on my phone, I would read. I didn’t have long stretches of time so I had to find a different way to do this thing I said I wanted to do.

There are also audiobooks. There's a lot of time in our lives where we could be multitasking in a way that’s not detrimental. If you're cooking dinner, you can listen to an audiobook. If you're in the shower, you can listen to an audiobook. If you're driving around town, you can listen to an audiobook. 

So it's really about figuring out: is this goal meaningful? Does it matter? Does it get you closer to where you want to be? And if so, how are you going to make it a priority? How are you going to make it a habit?
I even do this with other tasks that I might avoid, like having Money Monday.  It’s such a habit now that even when I was away on vacation, I just pulled up my phone and I did it from my phone because it only takes me 15 to 20 minutes.

A lot of the stuff I do in my business for marketing is just a habit. And a habit is super powerful because you don't have to use up your brain space to do it. 

Every Sunday night, you might schedule Instagram for the week. Or the first Tuesday of the month, you write all your blog posts!

There’s truly no end to the ways you can customize your habits to reach your goals in a way that makes sense for you.

Goals and habits will get us there. Resolutions won’t. It’s about measuring what success means to us and then working backwards.