2021: Choosing strategies over resolutions
It's 30 days into the new year, and I have clarity on how to change old habits and behaviour more than ever. It's not tied to resolutions. It's a strategy I thought I should share with you.
It’s 30 days into the new year, and as it’s always the custom a good number of people who started the year on a high dose of new year resolutions are floundering.
If you created a list of resolutions at the first dawn of 2021, chances are you are losing the motivation to soldier on.
You’re not alone, amigos. I was a specialist at creating unfulfilled new year resolutions. In the past, I’d write into my notepad a list of habits I needed to part ways with, but by the end of January, I lost the motivation to continue.
Sadly, I’d end the year the same way I started it, indulging in the bad habits I’d loathed. It was a graceful struggle, one that led to today’s redemption.
Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash
But do New Year’s resolutions work?
In her article, Marla Tabaka argues against the idea of creating resolutions using statistics from the U.S. News & World Report. According to the report, the failure rate of New Year’s resolutions is about 80 percent, and most people lose their resolve by mid-February.
Resolutions don’t manifest by accident. If you want to see an outcome, design it. Because most times, our resolutions are only wishful thoughts with no concrete action. We overwhelm the brain with too many details; no strategy, no tactics—just a long list of wishes.
The human brain isn’t a magician; it follows a structured strategy and tactics. Our neuroplastic brain learns a new behaviour through repetitive actions. The new behaviour becomes second nature because the neuroplastic brain creates a new nature out of the learned repetition.
It’s why people who attended boarding school still wake early, even after they’ve left. Why? Their plastic brain has learned a new behaviour that is second nature: stay awake by 5 am. This unique nature is different from the original biological nature, ready to stay awake from 7 am.
This simple process of brain plasticity applies to changing habits. Ordinarily, resolutions target habitual and behavioural changes. Both are difficult to change without discipline, a strategy and tactics.
It’s 30 days into the new year, and if you desire to alter a change in your life, you will find these few steps of mine:
Set Quarterly Strategies and Tactics:
Take each quarter (January-March; Quarter 1) and set a strategy. Make sure it’s one thing, say career advancement.
The simple hack is that you choose a strategy for Q1.
And the decisions you take daily to achieve the strategy for Q1 must be tactical.
If your strategy for Jan-Mar is Career Advancement, what do you hope to achieve under this in three months?
Smart contributions during office meetings
Apply for courses that’d help your career
Study career-related books
Take online courses
Get to the office early.
Stay focused at work
Set key career targets and achieve them
Here’s what the actionable tactics for Q1 Career Advancement goal should look like:
Sleep early by 10 pm (set alarms/reminders)
Stay awake by 5 am to prepare for work. Do exercise for 30 minutes.
Leave the house by 6:30 am to beat traffic (if you live in Lagos especially)
Dress smartly to work (wear a formal outfit that smells so good)
Read career-related books on my way to work(inside traffic)
Listen to a career-related podcast (en route to work)
Strategize for the weekly team meeting at work
Research a new project to be discussed at the meeting
Take notes on your findings.
Articulate your findings from the note during the meeting
Be a good listener during meetings (To achieve this, don’t fiddle with your phone or frequent social media.
Dedicate the weekend to online courses or binge-watch lengthy youtube videos that pertain to your career.
While all these are sustainable tactics, you also need to find someone that’d hold you accountable, someone to enforce discipline.
Again, resolutions don’t manifest by accident.
To apply these tactics, you need an accountability partner. This partner could be a respected friend or mentor. The partner keeps you in check, ensuring you achieve your quarterly strategy’s daily tactics.
At the end of Q1, these tactics, when applied with consistency, will create a new nature in your brain. The purpose of using this strategy is, it allows you to focus on a goal for three months. And when you take on another goal, say financial literacy, the next quarter, the previous goal becomes a habit; a second nature.
According to a 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, to form a new habit takes 18 to 254 days. Since New Year’s resolution target change in behavioural patterns, 90 days of consistent action, geared at a goal, contribute something tangible.
Does using strategies over resolution work efficiently as it’s written? Is success inevitable through these strategies?
Not necessarily, but then again, your chances of success increases when you set your mind to it, trust the process; learn from it, too, and find an accountable partner to enforce discipline.
That’s all in today’s newsletter. Kindly let me know if you find today’s edition helpful. Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for continually supporting and reading my newsletters. I really appreciate this kind gesture. Here’s wishing you a blissful 2021.
Welcome back Fes.