Setting New Year’s resolutions is a tradition for many. Keeping them may not be. While 2021 is still young.
If you’re like me, it’s easy to come up with a list of goals to accomplish in the new year - things I’d like to change about myself or new activities I want to try. But by year’s end, there aren’t many resolutions on that list that I can cross off.
I wanted different results in 2021, so I reached out to my friend, John Beranek. John owns Intersections Consulting, he’s an executive coach and motivational speaker. His first suggestion was to think about the process in a different way.
“I find when people stop thinking about it as “the goal” or “the Resolution,” that they’re making because so many people experience not doing that, and I wonder if the listeners’ would reframe it to think about, “what is the new habit I would like to lean into in 2021?” And, “what is a pattern I might like to break?” asks John Beranek.
Before putting pen to paper and making a list, Beranek also encourages folks to set time aside to take an objective look at ourselves and ask some tough questions.
“Are you doing what you really want to do? Are you showing up the way that you want to show up? Are you fully realizing your potential? And are you giving yourself enough credit, and or have you provided yourself with enough opportunity for learning for yourself in order to help you fully realize your potential?” asks Beranek
As the answers come, John encourages you to write them down.
“This doesn’t have to be formalized but take a little bit of time to sit down and write your truths to yourself in a journal or a tablet of paper or a note that you keep somewhere that nobody else gets to see,” says Beranek.
Some other strategies for success John shared during our conversation were: give yourself grace, enlist a coach or accountability partner, reward yourself along the way and make sure you are making a change or breaking a pattern because you want to, not because someone else wants you to.
Some other strategies for success John shared during our conversation were: give yourself grace, enlist a coach or accountability partner, reward yourself along the way and make sure you are making a change or breaking a pattern because you want to, not because someone else wants you to.
In other words, “find your why.”
“Find your why,” is the tip I received from Stuart Stein. Stuart has been accomplishing no less than 52 resolutions each year for the last four years. And it’s not because he has time on his hands. Stein recently took over his family’s three-generation’s-old Watertown business, ESCO Manufacturing & Stein Sign Display. Together with his wife, Crystal they have four young children.
“Find your why. Why do you do what you do? Why do I wanna go on weekly date nights with my wife? Well, because my relationship with my wife is the most important relationship that I have with anyone. And if I don't devote the time to her and our relationship, well, then then you know, then I've got problems,” explains Stein.
Weekly date nights are one of 26 new things Stuart accomplished in 2020. Inspired by a book he read in 2016, he began setting a resolution to try something new every other week and every other week reconnect with friends he doesn’t get to see or talk to on a regular basis.
“My belief is that enjoying life really boils down to relationships and experiences, pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone, doing things that we’ve never done before and at the end of the day, at the end of our life, you know… the things that I’m gonna remember most are the things that I do, that I get to experience by myself or with others,” says Stein.
Review Stein’s lists of experiences since 2017 and you’ll see in 2020 he read the entire Bible, built forts with his kids and tried smoking Cheese Its and Bread Pudding for the first time. You’ll also read that in 2019 he took Crystal on a helicopter Holiday lights tour of Falls Park, in 2018 he quit biting his nails and went surfing in Hawaii and in 2017, he went live on Facebook to play Christmas songs and took his mom to a Billy Joel concert.
Whether ordinary or extra ordinary, Stein says he relies on planning ahead and his calendar to hold him accountable.
“One person, one thing, one person, one thing, alternating every other week. And I don’t flip the calendar to February until I’ve got January filled out,” says Stein.
Because life happens, there are some weeks when he doesn’t reach his goal, so he double’s up the next week. Allowing yourself some grace is part of the journey explains Stuart.
You can check out Stuart Stein’s list at SDPB.org.