When I started writing this little text, it was at the end of November. The days are quite short; it is dark when people are off to work and when they get home. The Christmas holidays are just around the corner. The same old game every year.
Another thing that I regularly experience during that time of the year is that many people, including me, are coming up with new year’s resolution. They often sound similar:

  • I will do more training
  • I want to live healthier
  • I want to have better grades
  • I want to finish this or that

The list of such resolutions can be endless, and I have probably made a whole bunch of them myself, but honestly, I rarely succeed with any of them.
Sounds familiar? Feel free to continue reading and maybe you reach the same conclusion as I did.

Why do new year resolutions fail?

The reason for failing your resolutions is quite simple in my opinion:
Bad timing
During the Christmas period, most people are stressed but also happy that the year is coming to an end. A lot of stuff has happened, we have worked hard, reached some goals and failed once in a while. When reflecting over the past year, I often find myself focusing on the positive stuff ignoring many of the difficult. While it is important to highlight and be proud of the accomplishments, it can also make me too ambitious and enthusiastic when I set goals for the upcoming year.

Too much time
Another reason why new year resolutions often fail is that they come with an “invite to procrastination”: the new year has just started so there is plenty of time left to work on our goals so why should we start working on them right away? Probably you have heard yourself saying something of the following:

  • “After the vacation, I will …”
  • By doing so, we give ourselves an excuse in advance for not reaching the goal.

So where to go from here?

Probably the most important lesson I have learnt during the past years is that vacation has a single and simple purpose: To relax.
It is important to switch off for some time, recharge the batteries, dedicate the time to issues that fall a bit short during every day life:

  • family
  • travelling
  • getting back in touch with friends
  • rest
  • …and all the other things you never seem to take the time to do during your everyday busy life.

In other words, vacations are probably not the best time for making larger plans.
Set shorter goals
When it comes to setting and pursuing goals I started planning in shorter terms: In my experience, planning one month ahead seems good enough whereas planning longer periods feels a bit hard as I rarely know what happens three to four months from now. Planning maximum one month ahead helps me to get put things into action, to become more focused and motivated and to minimize the risk to procrastinate. At the same time, keeping the scope fairly small makes it easier to react to unexpected circumstances.
Take action
The main reason for me to make new year resolutions was that I am not really happy with the status quo and I am already aware that we need to (…or should, or want to) change something. Having this insight is good and essential. However, action needs to be taken to actually achieve some change. While I was earlier hiding all too often behind a new year resolution, I try to find ways to get started right away.
Following this approach I reached a couple of goals throughout the year:

  • I started a healthier life style: Better food and more sleep
  • I teach myself Spring Boot in the context of a concrete software project. The result is already deployed in the cloud
  • I completed reading four job-related books and gained lots of new insights
  • I started learning python
  • I even found the time to review a book written by a colleague

So, now it is that time of the year again: The days are quite short and the Christmas holidays are right around the corner. I still need to fix some tasks on my agenda (you know, the “usual suspects” that are probably on everybody´s todo list before the holidays). Then there will be some time to rest before I will aim for new stuff in January. What about you? Have you already thought about your plans for the following month?