goals | Life and Code

I am always asked what my resolutions for the new year are, people are sometimes taken aback that I don’t make resolutions when the calendar year rolls over, y++. That said, here is the short version of my feelings on the subject. New Year resolutions imply static goals to me – don’t get me wrong I think the new year is a great time to examine the progress on goals and make new goals. I do feel that once a year to make broad sweeping resolutions is too long an interval to make any kind of measured progress on a resolution. I much prefer a dynamic approach to goal setting as smaller goals tend to be easier to measure and accomplish. Broad sweeping resolutions hardly ever are meaningful – Stretch goals are awesome, making small measurable changes often work better than nebulous ideas like, I am going to lose weight this year or to the extreme, I am going to work on world peace this year. I will agree these are both good goals, but without a specific plan both are pretty meaningless and it is almost certain that neither will happen. So I guess, really, what I am saying is that deciding on December 31 that you will change major things without a specific plan is equal to running at full speed into the darkness with no idea of why or where you are going. I am a big believer in goal setting, but in general the only thing broad goals are useful for is general direction/policy. So to save yourself the FAIL that most experience a year after they decide to do whatever thing they planned to the year before my suggestion is simple.

Make simple goals that you can actually accomplish in the time period. The goals should be specific and quantifiable and the review period should be way less than a year.