Top Resolutions For a Year of Great Work
I’m sure you’ve heard it before: 92% of New Year’s Resolutions fail.
And, yet, almost half of Americans set them, anyway.
What does that tell us?
Are we gluttons for punishment? Maybe.
I’m inclined to think that we set resolutions because we can’t help but hope for a better future (the same reason we set goals, wish on a falling star, and draw tarot cards), and we fail at them because we don’t know to set up or support a year-long goal.
You might not realize it– heck, even I didn’t fully comprehend it until I was formalizing my time management system for the Great Work Journal— but the word “goal” is used interchangeably across a broad and diverse range of ideas.
We say, “My goal for the next decade,” and “My goal for this quarter,” and “My goal for this afternoon” as though they are the same thing.
But, of course, they aren’t. You can’t set them up, support them, or make progress on them in the same way. If you’ve read Great Work, you may remember the upside-down triangle where I articulate this as the hierarchy of ideas; it starts at the catalyzing vision and works its way down to the daily to-do.
(See chapter 4 of Great Work, which is also reprinted in the opening to the Expanded and Aligned Great Work Journal)
Of our original examples, the only one that qualifies as a goal is the quarterly one.
A goal needs to be specific and measurable so that you can quickly tell how you are progressing on it, across the whole 90 days.
What you do in the next decade isn’t going to be concrete like that because its purpose isn’t to drive actual progress but rather to generate and sustain motivation.
What you do this afternoon doesn’t usually require you to track its progress. (If it does, you may want to kick it up to a weekly task.)
This taxonomy can help you make predictable, drama-free progress on your goals, but it’s not going to be much help with your New Year’s Resolutions. That’s because, in my opinion, a New Year’s Resolution is an entirely different thing.
There is something truly magical about collectively turning the new year.
The whole world celebrates the ending of one year and the beginning of the next; how could you help but look forward and wonder:
“Who could I BE this time next year?”
That’s the question I recommend you use to capitalize on the magical energy of the new year without confining yourself to the confusion and disappointment of a failed New Year’s Resolution.
In fact, the best New Year’s Resolutions set an intention to actively explore a new way of being. It’s a desire to see the world through a new lens and a commitment to reading about, thinking about, and experimenting with a way of being that intrigues you.
You might encapsulate it in a word for the year or a mantra. I use both of those.
Last year, my word was “Acceptance.” I am getting older, and so are my kids. My mom died, and I wanted to let some of the fight go out of me. All year, I explored and considered this more accepting way of being.
I did the Daily Trip on the Calm app most days in 2024. I wish I could give Jeff Warren a hug.
When my daughter pointed out my gray hair, I agreed and said I always liked my Grandma’s white hair.
When my complex emotions for my mother swept through me, undulating between anger, grief, sadness, and relief, I just watched them and said, “Yes, I do feel that way.”
Accepting isn’t a word that describes me in my youth. If you were being nice, you would describe my excellent problem-solving skills. If you were being mean, you’d call me obsessed. If you were a therapist, you would have insisted that we explore my hypervigilance.
As I experimented and explored what “acceptance” as a way of being might mean for my life, I realized that I was always looking for a problem to solve.
What if, in fact, there was no problem?
The first time I heard about this life-changing idea, I was having lunch with my long-time client, dear friend, and amazing couple therapist, Linda Charnes. I told her I might like screenwriting, but I wasn’t sure it was right for me. I told her that I wrote a screenplay, but what did it mean? She said, ever so cooly, “You seem to be looking for a problem, but what if there isn’t one?”
It stopped me in my tracks.
“What if there is no problem? Oh, my God. What if THERE IS NO PROBLEM!”
Lives were changed that day. Well, one life was. Mine.
Throughout the year, I kept returning to this theme and let it unfold over time. I learned all kinds of interesting things and was able to become more accepting.
Put me in the 8%! My New Year’s Resolution was a hit!
Top Resolutions For a Year of Great Work
This is the power of setting an intention and letting it unfold for a whole year.
A whole year of journalling prompts, conversations, book selections, and deep thoughts. How could you fail to grow from that kind of consistent, focused thinking?
If you give yourself this gift, I think you’ll find yourself in the 8%, too.
Below, I’ve listed my top New Year’s Resolutions if your goal is to do more of your Great Work this year (recommended!).
If one stops you in your tracks and makes you feel like a rock-start squirrel, maybe give it a shot. If not, let them spark your inspiration.
1. Commit to Connection
Great Work can only get so far without other people. You need new ideas, collaborators, friends, mentors, and people who genuinely think you are funny if you are going to succeed.
Choose “Connection” as your word for 2025, and you can:
Get better at small talk (by being bad at it first)
Reach out to people you admire and express appreciation
Read biographies and build your mental board of directors
Be mindful about connecting on the platform of your choice and see if connecting gets better results than promoting yourself
Make a list of birthdays and sing on voicemails all year long
2. Explore Your Mindset
If you struggle with procrastination, you might think you have a time management problem.
Fair enough, it does feel that way.
And yet, most people I work with who struggle with procrastination actually have a mindset problem.
There is a competing commitment, and their mind becomes confused, discouraged, or hopeless and it manifests as procrastination. This was the focus of my TEDx talk, and it’s the focus of Chapter 6 of Great Work.
If you choose “Mindset” as your word for 2025, you could:
Explore these resources and learn which mindset is driving your procrastination.
Use mantras to develop new beliefs in yourself.
Read “Competing Commitments” and intentionally resolve yours.
Reach out to me if you want help with that.
3. Create a Resilience Practice
Great Work flows from resilience, not hustle. This was the theme of my resilience series on the podcast in 2022, and I’ve only grown more committed to this truth.
Psychology defines resilience as our ability to bounce back from hardships and obstacles, and Great Work is full of obstacles! But that’s not the only reason you want to be resilient. REsillience makes it easier to be happy, cheerful, and connected to other people in meaningful ways, and makes it possible to cultivate a baseline sense of peace.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s possible to do your Great Work without sacrificing everything else.
A resilience practice plays a big role in making that possible.
Choose “Resilience” as your word for 2025 and:
Investigate mindfulness practices like yoga, meditation, hypnosis, and journalling
Do the Artist’s Way and discover how to “fill the well.”
Take long walks in nature. Bonus for moving water, as it’s neurologically soothing
Read books about resilience practices that speak to you, like tree-hugging or card pulling, or astral projection (anything that makes you feel expansive, excited, or relaxed is a win!)
4. Be In Action
There might be no better resolution than discovering what it’s like to be in action after feeling stuck. Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves that we are in charge of our lives, we have choices, and we can make a little bit of progress every day if we choose to.
This is a particularly good resolution if you have lost trust with yourself. A practice of being decisive and then acting on that decision every day or at least every week can reassure you that you are taking your Great Work seriously.
Choose “Action” as your word for 2025 and:
Use the Done App and take note of something you moved forward every day, even if it feels painfully small
Ask for help from someone who has done what you want to do. Let that be your first action!
The Great Work Journal can help you with this by helping you articulate what you want and then guiding you to take action every quarter, every week, and every day.
Believe in accumulation! Small steps over time add up so much more quickly than big steps taken only once in a while. Trust that truth.
5. Delegate
When the pace of Great Work picks up, you will quickly realize that you are only one person and you cannot do it all yourself.
In cases like these, you need to delegate early and often! Every one of us has a zone of genius where our Great Work flows like water. Conversely, we all have some tasks that make us feel a little bit dead inside or require us to tie ourselves down to the chair to get them done. Delegating those tasks does more than free up time! It frees up headspace and heartspace and stops the drain on our resilience from doing things we hate.
If you are clear on what you need to do but cannot get to it all, you might want to choose “Delegate” as your word for 2025 and:
Explore hiring a virtual assistant or an online business manager
Focus on documenting your processes so that a handoff is seamless
Find targeted support for tasks that might be fun but aren’t in your zone of genius. For me, this includes podcast editing, website design, and SEO.
Read Chapter 3 of Great Work (entitled: Do Less. Much, Much Less) because you know what’s better than delegation? Saying “no!”
6. Reject Hurry
I heard Brooke Castille (the controversial founder of the Life Coach School) say that when we hurry, we reveal that we don’t believe we can achieve our “goal” (used broadly here, as she does).
She argued that we wouldn’t need to hurry if we believed we could do it.
Instead, we would savor every minute of our inevitable success.
Since hearing this, I have begun to catch myself hurrying to be done. When I think about why I’m racing around and forcing things to go more quickly, I can tell that sometimes I am trying to avoid feeling the uncertainty and insecurity of doing something new.
Instead of continuing this unconscious behavior this year, I’ve settled on the word “Allowance,” though I could have just as easily chose the word “Ease.” The first draft of my 2025 mantra is “I’m allowing things to unfold.”
I’m not in a hurry; I’m not trying to force anything. I will let things be easy, let things take time, and believe that an even better outcome will emerge.
Choose “Ease” as your word for 2025 and:
Focus on developing your strengths, not “fixing” your challenges.
Notice when you feel anxious or worried about whether you are “good enough,” and allow yourself to feel that feeling instead of rushing into action to avoid it.
Doing Great Work is your natural state. Allow yourself to do more of it and experience the ease of allowing you to be you.
Read Chapter 4 of Great Work (Do Less: Much, Much Less) and get busy releasing yourself from the prison of overcommitment.
7. Be In Service
As a psychologist, I have been accused of being too focused on the individual instead of recognizing the fundamental interconnectedness of all people.
(Note: this describes a device between cognitive and social psychologists that goes back centuries! Think Piaget versus Vygotsky. In this example, I’m falling prey to the Piagetian mindset, and this resolution would bring a Vygotskian perspective)
If this describes you, too, you can turn your attention to a year focused on giving support, lifting others up, and collaborating with people you admire.
Choose “Service” as your word for 2025 and:
Support the authors that you know. Buy their book, take a picture of yourself holding it, and post it along with a review on Amazon. Then, watch them melt with gratitude.
Offer to share other people’s (whose work you admire, of course) event links, blog posts, and product offerings to your followers or community. See what its like to share without expectation of return. My guess? The return will be ginormous.
Tell people that you admire them. If you want help with what to say, here’s a link to an explicit appreciation planner I made ages ago. (The key piece of advice is this: avoid the word “but” at all costs. Say what you like and leave it!)
A year-long resolution needs a community!
I hope your year-long resolution leads to insights, progress, and joy.
If it does, who are you going to tell?
Me, of course!
I’d love for you to join me at my live, online events: The Great Work Series. I hold them every month at noon on a Wednesday.
The registration pages for a few of them are available here.
We have a great time, and there will always be time for you to share how your resolution is going.
