Screw New Year's Resolutions (Belated Happy New Year! 🎊)

So, we’re two weeks into the new year, how are your resolutions going so far?

I personally don’t believe in new year’s resolutions. I don’t think it is a good way to go about personal change.

And to me, it does not make any sense to tie them to what basically is a random date.

Take myself as an example. If I’d decided to do or stop doing XY at the beginning of this year, I’d be utterly disappointed.

This time of the year, especially up here in Helsinki is very literally dark and cold. Not a high-energy environment. Is that really the ideal moment to start with the "new me"?

Also, I had a couple of weeks off (reason for which I haven’t been publishing lately). So basically it would ruin my vacation, as I’d feel bad for not doing the thing I said I would, because it's the time when I’m recharging my batteries.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have goals, and it may make sense for you to think about them at the beginning of the year.

However, the traditional resolutions are often based on this “new year, new me” idea, where we expect miraculous change happening, us becoming somehow better, without any plan, except for that “resolution”.

There a couple of flaws in this approach.

1. First, what is the motivation for the intended change? Is it extrinsic or intrinsic? That is to say, are you whole-heartedly committed out of an internal desire to make that change, or is it more motivated by the desire to please others or meet certain expectations?

   
   

2. Secondly, do you have a plan? Resolutions are often rather vague, like the classic: “I’ll work out more.” No wonder all gyms put up ads in January and offer great deals on memberships. Have you ever bought one of those? I certainly did. And how often did I go there? Not that often… even though the gym was very close to my home. Why? because I didn’t have a plan apart from buying the gym membership. And I don't particularly love the gym.

   
   

3. Thirdly, is it realistic? Even if you have a well intentioned plan, is it anywhere realistic? Let’s stick with the same example. Are you really going to go to the gym 5 days a week? Is the gym membership even the right one? Or would it be better to join a sports club, or a running group, or sign up for a pilates class?

It comes back to the first point. What are you actually motivated to do in order to improve your fitness? It’s worth thinking about that. Because that routine should not just last for the next couple of months, or even for this particular year, but ideally for the rest of your life. That is what sustainable change looks like.

Be it for your physical health, a particular skill you want to improve, whatever it is, the most critical thing is that what you do somehow provides you satisfaction. Because if it doesn't, how are you going to stick to it for years on end?

This all goes to say that real change doesn't hinge on a date on the calendar. To increase the likelihood for your new habits to last, tap into our intrinsic motivation, make a very concrete, ambitious, but realistic plan. Small and consistent steps are typically more likely to stick, than the grand and exaggerated goals that we drop within weeks.

Finally, experimenting, trying things, failing, starting again, is extermely important. If we give up after missing our initial goal, don’t give up, just scale back. If you really want to persue that specific thing, then just adjust it to something that feels more manageable. Instead of five times per week, try doing two, and see whether you can stick to that. If not, reduce it to once a week, but really do that and build from there once the routine is established.

As a coach, helping clients change and grow is what I do for a living.

Most of the times, my clients very well know what they ought to do (hence the resolutions). However, sometimes the clarity is not where it should be. Or the ideas are too high level and there is no concrete plan yet. Or it’s too idealistic and might not be realistic in their current life circumstances.

So if you feel like you need some help with this, please do get in touch.

And so, what actually makes for a good goal? At the end of last year I heard coaching thought-leader Michael Bungay Stanier talk about the attributes of a worthy goal, and that it should be thrilling, important, and daunting.”

So ask the following questions when you set yourself a goal. Because that's what we coaches do: ask questions (that is not the ONLY thing we do though, I promise...).

Read your goal loud to yourself and ask:

• How thrilling is it?

• How important is it?

• How daunting is it?

Also recently, I learned about the Yerkes-Dodson Law, a well-established psychological model describing the relationship between tension (arousal or stress) and performance. This law states that performance improves with increasing tension but only up to an optimal level. Beyond that tipping point, too much tension decreases performance, forming an inverted-U or bell-shaped curve. The curve looks like this.

Now, looking at this, I couldn’t help but think of Mihaly (Mike) Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Model. While the curve above dates back to the early 20th century, Mike’s work on flow states and the corresponding field of research that originated from his work is much younger, and was part of what led to the launch of the Positive Psychology movement, which he co-initated together with Martin Seligman at the turn of the millenium.

You may wonder what all of this may have to do with setting yourselves a goal?

Well, if we look at the curve above, it’s easy to see that if we want to perform at our best, we should stretch ourselves slightly. You can also call it positive stress. But please, positive stress is ALWAYS temporary and NEVER chronic.

So that addresses the question of how daunting your goal is. It should sit at the top or slightly down the right slope. But you shouldn’t push it too far, because then you may fall into anxiety due do too much pressure.

When it comes to the importance of the goal, that is probably the most obvious one. However, one thing to keep in mind here, is the fallacy of taking something urgent for being the most important thing. Here the Eisenhower-Matrix can come in handy. Not jsut for your goals, but generally when prioritzing things. Look at the things through that lens and decide in which of the four quadrants an issue falls and act accordingly by doing, scheduling, delegating, or eliminating it.

Finally, is your goal thrilling? This may not be the so easy to define. But the question: "Is it getting you our of bed in the morning?", can be a useful proxy. Here we touch on some key aspects related to your goal and how it is linked to a larger purpose than oneself, how well aligned it is with our own values, and to what extent we can lean into our strengths when working towards the goal. All of those, purpose, values, and strenghts are typical coaching topics.

I personally love strengths coaching, because I feel it is so powerful and empowering to work on our awareness of our strengths and it also helps us to understand other people’s strengths better, appreciate them, and realize that having a team that complements each other is a key ingredient to sustained success.

One way to start working on one’s strength is to take a formal assessment as a starting point for the coaching conversation. There’s a myriad of options out there, but one I personally like as an easy and actionable entry point is called The Six Types of Working Genius. I’ll go into it in a future post, but if you’re curious to learn more, please get in touch. (Or you can buy the assessment including a debrief call with me to discuss the results and define action steps.)

Thank you for sticking with me this far, and I hope it is helpful for you as you define how your 2026 will be remarkable. It all starts with a dauting, important, and thrilling goal.

Because having that is already half the battle. It will work as a motivation booster. And the cherry on top: If you work on your systems and routines, it is also your gateway to flow states. But that's for another time.

Don't dwell on resolutions, define tangible goals instead. Let’s explore and refine them together!

I’ve recently launched my Substack. So if you’d like to get these longer articles directly to your inbox, please sign up! My typical topics include our human predicament, the road towards sustainability, and the role of coaching in it all.