Don’t let your 2023 Resolutions fail

In mid-2019, I set myself a goal of running half marathon. I had three months to prepare myself for this feat. I was too focused on achieving this goal. And I was successful too. In October 2019, I ran and successfully completed my first half-marathon. But what happened next was something I had not anticipated. I stopped my training all together. The race, next half- marathon was no longer a motivation for me. I felt devoid of enthusiasm to continue training for long distance running — there was nothing more to push me forward. My goal was accomplished. And I let myself easily slip back to my casual routine of running 2 -3 kms.

It was like this until I came across a few articles by James Clear on habits, systems and goal-setting. James is a known writer and his book ‘Atomic Habits’ had a great influence on me ( read my article here). I realised how my goal setting helped me achieve my short term target but I somehow failed to develop a system to sustain my practice post my achievement. I failed to continue my training to help me become a life-long runner. Doesn’t it sound familiar to you too?

Image by Marc A from Pixabay

“ Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.” — Scott Adams

Quite often, we spend a lot of time in goal planning. This is important but little do we take care of the system and environment to support the execution of the planning. This was a major learning for me in 2022 at my work front when my clients struggled to meet their commitments. In my day-to-day job, I work with data product managers and last quarter we spent considerable time in defining our KPIs, goals & targets for 2023. But this time, we equally spent time in identifying the support we needed — be it collaboration with different teams, our dependencies on external factors, resources & trainings needed to match the scale of commitment, technology capabilities needed to help in efficiency and speed, financial and leadership support etc. We locked in our goals and also defined a system needed to make consistent progress in long-term.

Goals provide direction to our thoughts and actions. And Systems help us to be more consistent, efficient and effective in our endeavour and help us overcome small obstacles which may otherwise easily derail us from our track. They are a set of methods we put in place in our environment to achieve our goals.

Build Systems to Stick to your Goals in 2023

As we enter 2023 and many of us will be making ( or might have already made) new year resolutions and setting goals for ourselves in 2023, lets strive on building robust systems and habits to help us achieve your goals in short-term and help us sustain a good practice on long-term. For example:

1. Make a Ritual: If you are looking for financial independence and you plan to save and invest ‘x’ amount in 2023, build a system that will help you to sustain it in long term. This is what I did when I set out on my mission to be financially independent — started SIP of ‘y’ amount, invested 2/10 of my monthly income without fail on the salary day, slept over my decisions to buy a thing that helped me choose whether I really need it vs my desire for it. Making a ritual and sticking to it can really help you achieve your long-term goals easily.
2. Change your Environment: Last year, I and my partner realised that we were spending too much time on mobile phones, laptops and decided to reduce our screen time. Our daily job demands us to spend 7–8 hours on screen. And then top it with watching content on OTT platform. So easily, we were spending 10–12 hours daily on screen which affected our sleep, added stress on our eyes and most importantly made us lazy. Hence, we decided to cancel all our OTT subscriptions- this was tough. With ample of time at hand, we made it a point to close our laptops by 6 PM and go for a 30–40 minutes walk. We put in efforts to make a new friend circle with whom we can hang around, play sports and even board games. Now, we look forward to our Friday board game nights rather than hooking ourselves to screen for a Friday night movie! We changed our environment and it helped us to change.
3. Build a Behaviour: Our human mind is really intriguing. At times, it plays games with us. We start off well but soon the motivation wanes. Our mind starts giving excuses for not performing a task. Hence, we need to trick our mind until we have changed our behaviour. Doing meditation for 30 minutes on day 1 may seem daunting. But doing it for 2 minutes seem reasonable. Sitting idle for 2 minutes seems doable on everyday basis. That’s how I build my habit of practicing morning meditation. It was 2 minutes everyday for 60 days that helped me to then start sitting still for 5 minutes to 10 minutes to 30 and now an hour. I was focused on building a behaviour to sit still and breathe when I wake up rather than checking messages on my mobile phone. Results will come eventually once we have changed our behaviour.

Conclusion

If you are looking forward to achieving your goals in 2023, you need to commit yourself to build strong systems to help you in achieving it. It is what will differentiate you from yourself in 2022 — having process, methods in place to help you win, achieve goals and sustain good habits in long-term.