I Tried Two Different New Year’s Resolution Planning Methods
By: Tom Hitchen
Tags: Health, Life, Hope, Productivity, Wellbeing

Method 1: LifeHack’s, “7 Steps For Making a New Year’s Resolution and Keeping It” by Annabel Candy

LifeHack’s article jumped out at me because of its decisive title. Make it and keep it. Wow, okay. Here’s how using this method went.

1. “Just Pick One Thing”

Usually, I have a long list of things I want to achieve in the following year, so just picking “one thing” already seems like an arduous task. For this method, I’m going with a, you guessed it, a health and fitness goal. I know a lot of health resolutions get made at New Year’s, so here’s hoping that the LifeHack method works! Like I say, narrowing down the extensive list that exists in my head for the majority of the year to just one is hard. In the end, I‘m settling on the goal of getting fitter and toning up, more specifically to reduce my body fat percentage to somewhere between 15–17%.

2. “Plan Ahead”

Okay, so this is definitely more me. Planning? Yes, please. While the selection of the resolution was, at first, difficult, the following steps are increasingly easier to navigate due to their specificity. Annabel Candy says, “If you do enough research you should even be looking forward to making the change.” For this, I looked deeper into YouTube — a site that I have been using to collate health tips for a while — and found great, science-based content like this and articles on the topic from industry-leading sources. I like this step because it builds anticipation and excitement. It also allows for those practices to start happening earlier and for the mind to begin to accept that changes are going to happen.

3. “Anticipate Problems”

Even planning brings problems. Candy says, “There will be problems so make a list.” Oh, absolutely. For me, anything health-related is directly related to food and missed workout opportunities or what I like to call, “too much Netflix time.” Seriously though, it’s so hard to balance a healthy lifestyle with good mental wellbeing. My list here would be: Birthdays or celebrations, potential takeout twice a month, and shift patterns at work. That wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and even writing a list of problems eased some of the tension I had.

4. “Pick a Start Date”

One day I will get over my need to start new things on a Monday. But, today is not that day. So, Monday 4th January, here we go. But, Candy also says that starting anything on the 1st could be detrimental to your progress. Well, if Candy says so.

5. “Go for It”

“On the big day go for it 100%.” Oh, I absolutely will. One thing about this step that I really like is where it says about writing down a commitment. I always think that writing things down cements it deeper in ourselves, even more so than typing. Hit delete enough times and any thought or musing or idea can be completely erased. Not writing with a pen and paper, though. Even crossing something out leaves a mark, signaling a choice and a different path. With all this in mind, I won’t type my commitment here, I’ll save it for the notebook.

6. “Accept Failure”

Failing is an integral part of any journey. Having a goal without failure is like having warm apple pie without ice cream; you need failure to get to the best possible outcome. Candy talks about making notes of the triggers that cause our failure and put in steps that will help bypass them the next time. I think here, any failure exists as a by-product of the anticipated problems I mentioned earlier. In the moment the problem occurs and the weight of failure bears itself down on me, I need to be prepared, I need to accept, and I need to move on.

Perseverance is the key to success. Try again, keep trying and you will succeed. — Annabel Candy

7. “Plan Rewards”

Chocolate.

No, but seriously, LifeHack’s article talks about splitting rewards up into small and frequent in the first few days, to weekly and then even monthly with a long term reward at the end. I think after the hell of 2020, and with a glimpse of hope at the end of it, I would love my reward to be a trip with my fiancée and dog. Just somewhere other than here.

Method 2: Harvard Medical School’s, “Seven steps for making your New Year’s resolutions stick”

Another method, another seven steps. Here’s what happened at Harvard.

1. “Dream big”

Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) seven steps seem a lot more concise than LifeHack’s. HMS says “audacious goals are compelling”, and I wholeheartedly agree. Big goals are both scary and exciting. Big goals say there’s going to be a journey and I would like to think that I am just as good as Frodo when it comes to journeys. For this, I went with: Get a literary agent, get 2x freelance writing jobs per month minimum, and tone up.

2. “Break big dreams into small-enough steps”

To stop this post being a hundred years long, I’m going to pick one of the above in order to dissect HMS’s seven-step guide. So, getting a literary agent? Yikes. Truth is, I am already well into this journey. This goal is just that. It isn’t a resolution, that immediate U-turn, it’s something I have been working on for the past few years. This year, I finished my MA, during which I finished the final edit of my manuscript and sent it off to agents. Next year, however, I hope to finish my next work-in-progress and go for it again. To break it down, HMS says to make lists and use a step-by-step process to tackle the bigger goal. For example, this would look something like: Write daily, finish the first draft by end of January, create new agent list, start second draft edits, and so on…

3. “Understand why you shouldn’t make a change”

HMS talks about really thinking about the changes that you decide to make. Balance needs to happen between the desire to change and the drive to make that change happen.

“You boost your chance of success when the balance of pluses and minuses tips enough to make adopting a new behavior more attractive than standing in place.”

I know that pulling another year like this one when it comes to novel writing won't be easy, but the reward from seeing my work out there is so much more than the long hours, the writing on lunch breaks, and the staying up too late.

4. “Commit yourself”

On the surface, this step seems pretty obvious. But, HMS talks about making your claims concrete by involving someone, or something, else. A Facebook post, texting a friend, or shouting it out at work, college or university. It sounds daunting but somewhere out there is a safe haven for you to share your goals. I’ll be texting my writing buddy.

If you read this and want someone to hear your resolution, I’m all ears.

5. “Give yourself a medal”

Like LifeHack. HMS is all about the rewards. They really advocate for rewards small and often. Fine by me! Something I like to do is check-in with my writing buddy daily with my word count for the day. Just putting achievements down into words really helps the serotonin boost.

6. “Learn from the past”

HMS really goes into detail about learning from our mistakes. If something goes wrong, write down the reasons why and make adjustments for the next time. Keep pushing on, don’t stop, don’t look back, and most of all, keep moving forward.

7. “Give thanks for what you do”

The final step includes probably my favorite quote: “Compete to complete”. It’s alright if you don’t achieve your goal in the way you first wanted to, just as long as you get there. Me? As long as I’m on submission with my next book, then that’s enough…

For now.

Because there’s always a next step.