Are New Year's Resolutions Dead?
Maybe they should be because the statistics aren’t very encouraging about the success of those resolutions.
There are a lot of reasons for that. Change isn’t easy in any case, so unless you’re prepared to invest in changing your behavior, your resolutions are likely to die aborning. It’s also statistically true that the resolutions people make are consistent from year to year, identical in many cases, confirming that we haven’t been very successful in achieving them the first time.
In a Statista study from 2018, they found that only 4% of people keep their resolutions.
Here's a better idea. Choose a Single Word for 2022
Over the years, you may have seen several articles extolling the virtue of choosing a single word to drive your success in the forthcoming year. It’s a valuable exercise to find that one word that will guide your actions and decisions and ignite the success you seek.
The exercise itself is rewarding. You’ll find that as you think about individual words, one of them will stick with you as the concept that resonates with your goals for the year. You’ll discard the the others as good but not meaningful enough to be THE word.
I won’t bore you with all the words I ran through … resilience … dominance … diligence … discipline … consistency … because there are a lot you can choose from.
I followed this process
When I reviewed my own performance over the last year or two, I recognized I had a lot of sound ideas … plans I was sure would work … programs I knew we could implement … but we simply failed to execute on too many of them. They’re still there but without execution, they will forever hang out in the trash bin of broken dreams and unrealized ambitions.
Most of us have far more ideas than we can ever put to work. I think we’d all be more successful if we chose just a couple ideas and executed the hell out of them.
My word for this year is EXECUTION
How is EXECUTION defined?
For me, it epitomizes what’s so often missing in our success formulas. Great ideas abound. Brilliant strategies exist. Excellent teams can be found.
BUT … without EXECUTION, none of those matter.
Here are several quotes that resonate for me about the power of EXECUTION. (I’m sure you can find some that reinforce your choice as well.)
"Execution is everything."
"The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution."
"Average people have great ideas. Legends have great execution"
"Most leaders would agree that they’d be better off having an average strategy with superb execution than a superb strategy with poor execution."
Here is a word list to get you started
I urge you to undertake this effort and as you consider individual words, I know you will land on the exact word to enable your success in 2022.
I’ve provided a “starter list” of words. Some are verbs and others are nouns but you can modify the concept in whatever way works for you. Some of the words are similar, but you should choose the one that resonates with you.
Follow these steps to find YOUR WORD FOR 2022!
- As you reflect on this past year, what could you improve upon, keep moving forward or do differently that would make the biggest difference in your success this year?
- What’s the most fulfilling personal or professional goal you could achieve?
- Is there a positive word to help you overcome what didn’t work very well for you in the past year? If, for example, you find yourself giving up too soon on too many things, would a word like PERSEVERANCE help you stay the course and get more of the right things done?
- What attribute will give you the most fuel to make this year the most successful and fulfilling ever?
- What would be a game-changer in your professional or personal life that would help you knock your goals out of the park this year?
THERE IS NO WRONG ANSWER!
This is only about what will work for you … and if the word that works best for you in not on my starter list, no worries.
Write it everywhere. Paste it on your wall. Write it on every page of your notebook or journal. When you do, you’ll find that you’ll embrace it and it will become embedded in your consciousness and will drive your greatest success this year.
When you have it, execute the hell out of it!