As humans, we’re not very good at keeping promises to ourselves. Take New Year’s resolutions. Year after year we tell ourselves this lie: “After the Holidays I’ll get my fitness/finances/waistline/relationships back on track.” And what happens? Our resolutions stall out after a few weeks and the sting of regret hangs in the air like wet laundry over a long-ignored Peloton bike.

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Research shows four out of five New Year’s resolutions (81%) will be abandoned by mid-January. In fact, fitness app Strava found the majority of users had given up on their New Year’s resolutions by January 19 (aka national “Quitter’s Day”).

Here’s something that may surprise you, however. Most resolutions don’t fail due to lack of willpower. They fail because we set goals that are way too ambitious. If you haven’t run a quarter mile since junior high school gym class, don’t resolve to run a marathon within six months. You might be able to pull that off in the movies, but in real life, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment, injury and an unhealthy relapse.

However, if you start with 20 minutes of walking a day with a goal of completing a 5K run in six months, your odds of success go up exponentially. And from there, you can talk about completing a 10K or half-marathon before year-end with even more ambitious goals in 2027.

Whether we’re talking about fitness, finances, weight loss or relationships, behavior modification is hard. That’s why it’s so important to “test drive” your resolutions for a month or two before making a full commitment. This honeymoon period gives you time to see how much you can really handle and make course corrections along the way. If life is too hectic to start your test drive now, move the test drive to January with the goal of setting your 2026 resolutions in February.

Here are four tips for making the test-drive period even more effective:

1. Be SMART.New Year’s resolutions are a form of behavior modification. To make this changing mindset stick, you want to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time Specific).Dan McMahon,

   managing partner of Integrated Growth Advisors, is a former football tight-end and no stranger to the ups and downs of weight change. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Dan told me about his audacious goal to lose 40 pounds by May 1, 2026. Dropping 40 pounds may sound like a lot – especially when starting right before the Holidays — but that works out to less than seven pounds per month or less than two pounds per week. Not a huge sacrifice and with the gradual approach, he’ll have plenty of time to make mid-course corrections.

In fact, without reducing his overall calories, Dan lost 18 pounds in the first two weeks of his journey. No pills or magic formulas here. He simply reduced the amount of carbs he was eating by about 90% and consumed more protein and fat to stay off hunger. He has also maintained his four-day-per-week exercise routine throughout the process.

While it might be tempting for Dan to get to his 40-pound weight loss goal way ahead of schedule, Dan’s sticking to the timetable, so he doesn’t peak too early and gain all the weight back. He told me the other day: “The easy pounds have been shed – mostly water weight and beer weight. Now the real work begins and I’m not going to rush it.”

2. Be consistent.As the old saying goes: “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. Don’t make excuses. Find a way to do the work to the best of your ability and don’t beat yourself up when you have an off-day or a cheat day. Just keep making a little progress every day and move the ball down the field one yard at a time. My post Consistency Is Not Boring has more.
3. Turn resolutions into ingrained habits to make them more relatable. For example:

• Resolution: Quit smoking vs. Ingrained Habit: Stop smoking that one cigarette you have every morning after breakfast.
• Resolution: Eat healthy food vs. Ingrained Habit: Start substituting that one daily morning pastry for a banana.
• Resolution: Lose weight vs. Ingrained Habit: Every evening after work, go for a two to three-minute run or walk around the block.
• Resolution: Manage stress vs. Ingrained Habit: Meditate for two to three minutes every morning after you wake up.
• Resolution: Improve finances vs. Ingrained Habit: Save an extra 2 percent of each paycheck and put half into my 401(k)s low-cost index fund and the other half into a high-yield savings account at your bank.

*** For more on making resolutions habit forming, see Sahil Bloom’s 30 for 30 Challenge.

4. Have an accountability partner.As the old saying goes, “it’s easier to let down yourself than it is to let down someone you trust.” Share your resolution with a person you can trust who won’t let you make excuses or talk you out of striving toward your goal.

Conclusion

Eating an entire elephant is impossible. But taking it one bite at a time makes a daunting challenge seem manageable. Tweak your resolutions all year long (See Step 4) and don’t beat yourself up for falling short. Instead of throwing in the towel, dust yourself, get back on the horse and set more realistic goals for the remainder of 2023.

As Napolean Hill famously said: “A goal is just a dream with a deadline.”  Take your goals for a test drive before diving in. Come MLK Day you’ll be glad you did.

How do you plan to stick to your resolutions in 2026? I’d love to hear from you.

#resolutions, #selfimprovement, #dedication, #goalsetting, #30for30

Ahh the Holidays. We ate, drank and spent too much. We let too much work slide. We let family relationships fray. It’s natural to want to get back on track and make amends. But our minds and bodies aren’t ready for significant behavioral modification yet. Instead, use this time to test-drive your resolutions so you can work out the kinks, make realistic adjustments, and commit to them for real come February or March.

Here’s why. Research suggests only one in ten Americans (9%) complete the resolutions they have set. In fact, one in four people (23%) will quit their resolutions by the end of the first week, and nearly half (43%) quit by the end of January.  Take health resolutions, one of the most popular and misguided categories. Research conducted by fitness app Strava shows that January 19^th – less than three weeks out – is the most popular day for abandoning resolutions. Strava calls it “Quitter’s Day.” In a minute I’ll explain why that’s actually good.

Why resolutions fail

The main reason so many resolutions fail is because they’re way too ambitious, they’re too vague or they’re not easily measurable. For instance, people who’ve been sedentary for years suddenly announce their resolution to run a marathon or do a (100 mile) century ride without any plans to do shorter events or build up their training gradually. Or they simply say: “This year I’m finally going to get in shape” or “lose weight” or “finally write that book I’ve been talking about for years” without any tangible milestones or benchmarks such as dong 10 more pushups per week, or losing one pound per week, or writing 1,000 words per week or one chapter per month.

Without setting realistic, tangible and easily measurable goals, it’s too easy to make excuses or get discouraged when real-life gets in the way. Harvard Business School professor, Amy Cuddy believes resolutions don’t last because too often we’re setting ourselves up for failure and self-loathing. “We tend to set unreasonable aims for ourselves and then experience negative emotions and a lack of motivation when we don’t reach them,” she observed. “Failing to meet the unreasonable goals we set for ourselves can in turn take a negative toll on our self-worth,” added Cuddy.

When it comes to goal setting, we all go through rough patches and setbacks. Jocko Willink, the retired Navy Seal and motivational speaker says that’s good. “Don’t get bummed out, don’t get startled, don’t get frustrated. Just look at the issue and say: ‘Good.’” Willink says it’s good when things suck because you have more time to take stock of the situation and to find a solution and get better. “Don’t throw in the towel,” barks Willink. “Get up. Dust off. Reload. Recalibrate and Re-Engage.”  (Jocko’s brief video is guaranteed to get you fired up!)

Here are five tips for making resolutions stick and here’s my take on the hard thing about hard things.

My resolutions

As for me, I’m test-driving three resolutions for late Q1 rollout.

1. Health. As some of you know I’m a bit of a caffeine addict. Last year I gradually eliminated all soda and chocolate from my diet. In 2024, I’m hoping to reduce my coffee intake by 50% by mid-year, starting by switching to a 6-oz cup from my usual 8-oz mug.
2. Work-Life Balance. I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t reduce my hours without a significant loss in income. But for 2024, I’m hoping to keep the hours the same and reduce the amount of work done at night and on the weekend by 25% by mid-year. It starts by going to bed 15 minutes earlier each weeknight and getting to the office 15 minutes earlier each weekday. That’s already a 75-minute improvement each week.
3. Fitness. My 20-year-old son and I have committed to doing a #MurphChallenge around the last week of March – and complete it in less than one hour. If you’re not familiar with a Murph Challenge, it was the favorite workout of former Navy SEAL, Michael Murphy of Lone Survivor movie fame. It ain’t easy.The Murph workout includes the following:

• 1 mile run.
• 100 pull-ups.
• 200 push-ups.
• 300 air squats.
• Finish with a second 1 mile run.

Anyone want to join us? Contact me to see how you stack up.

We’re doing 33% of the challenge once per week during January; 50% of the challenge once per week in February and 75% of the challenge once per week in early to mid-March. My son’s a gym rat and will probably crush me on the pullups and pushups. But I’m a faster runner and have better endurance. Should be a good matchup.

 Conclusion

As the old proverb goes “Slow and steady wins the race.” Use this month as “exhibition season” to test drive your resolutions for the year ahead. You may have to make some adjustments and eat some humble pie, but you’ll be stronger for it. When you think you’re ready to go live, post them in a public place (see mine above) and have an accountability partner to keep you on track. On those days when you just don’t think you have it, follow the Japanese principle of Kaizen (continuous improvement) getting just 1% better every day. Have a great 2024.

#resolutions, #personalgrowth, #selfawareness, #MurphChallenge

Not to dampen the Holiday spirit, but 2023 is not shaping up to be a banner year.

We’re heading into a recession. Inflation and wages are still too high. The Fed will continue raising rates near-term. That means continued headwinds for the stock market, the housing market and for borrowers. Meanwhile, we have a divided government. Flu season has returned with a vengeance and COVID hasn’t disappeared. The Russia-Ukraine conflict is likely to enter a quagmire and some of our airlines can’t get their planes off the ground.

Good!

It’s good because we have a unique opportunity to get better and there’s less downside risk if our new approach doesn’t work out.

Times like these remind me of one of my last marathons. I was late to the starting line and didn’t warm up properly. The previous night’s pasta wasn’t sitting right in my stomach, and it was unseasonably warm and windy. Not exactly the right conditions for a personal best. Sure enough, by mile 10 I was thinking seriously about throwing in the towel.

But then I remembered what my college track coach, the legendary Art Gulden liked to say: “Anyone can run fast when they’re feeling good; I’m going to teach you to run fast when you feel like crap.” And he did.

So, after a quick pitstop at the Porta-John, I got my head and GI tract re-set, and I came up with some new goals for that day. I’ll get to those in a minute.

Coach Gulden would say: “When your ass falls off in the middle of a race, don’t whine about it. Go back and pick it up, stick it back on, and keep going.” Jocko Willink, the retired Navy Seal, motivational speaker and podcast host would say: “When things are going bad: Don’t get all bummed out, don’t get startled, don’t get frustrated. Just look at the issue and say: ‘Good.’”

Willink says it’s actually good when things suck because you have more time to get take stock of the situation and find a solution. “Don’t throw in the towel,” barks Willink. “Get up. Dust off. Reload. Recalibrate and Re-Engage.”

*** Full 2-minute version of Jocko’s Good episode

Willink believes if you can still say the word “good” to yourself when times are bad then you’re still alive and you’re still breathing. “And if you’re still breathing, that means you’ve still got some fight left in you,” said Willink. “Accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem, and turn it into something good.”

So, I decided to flush from my mind the first 10 crappy miles of my race and to set a new goal. The new goal was to run the last 16 miles faster than I ever closed out the last 16 miles of a race before. And that’s what kept me going. My overall time was about five minutes slower than my personal best, but thanks to a very strong last 16, I was a top finisher in my age group and felt like I could have run another five miles. Finishing that way was a helluva lot better than quitting at mile 10 and having a big old DNF (Did Not Finish) next to my name.

Conclusion

Nobody has a crystal ball, but I suspect there will be times when we’re severely tested in 2023. Some of you will have the courage to find solutions and push through. Others of you will say to yourself: “That’s Life” or “It Is What It Is” or “Whaddya Gonna Do?” If you say that crap to me, do me a favor and send in your termination notice. I don’t want to work with you.

For the rest of you, let’s get after it in 2023. It’s time to get comfortable being a little uncomfortable. Don’t take a DNF.

What’s your take? I’d love to hear from you.

#JockoWillink, #resolutions, #selfimprovement, #reslience, #stoicism

Oscar Wilde once said: “Good resolutions are simply checks that people draw on a bank where they have no account.” 

As humans, we’re not very good at keeping promises to ourselves. Take New Year’s resolutions. Year after year we promise ourselves: “After the Holidays I’ll get my fitness/finances/waistline/relationships back on track.” And what happens? They stall out and the sting of regret hangs in the air like wet laundry over a long-ignored Peloton bike.

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Research shows four out of five New Year’s resolutions (81%) will be abandoned by mid-January. Another widely cited study found that one in four people (23%) quit their resolution after just one week. Fitness app Strava found the majority of users had given up on their New Year’s resolutions by January 19 (aka national Quitter’s Day).
In a minute, I’ll share some tips for increasing the odds of making your resolutions stick. But first let’s look at why they fail. Bottom line: behavior change is hard. It can be unpleasant, uncomfortable and takes time. That’s a tough sell in today’s era of life hacks, apps and instant gratification.

1. Timing. New Year’s Day is an absolutely terrible time to start making accountability pacts with yourself. You’ve just spent the past month (or two) overindulging with friends, family and the Amazon delivery people. Your defenses and self-discipline are down. It takes time just to get back on track, let improve. But most people assume they can sprint out of the gate toward a better version of themselves, whether it’s breaking a bad habit or reaching a financial, fitness or mental health goal. As with so many things in life, it takes time and patience. You have to be committed for the long haul.

2. Overly ambitious. Most people set New Year’s goals that are BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) instead of realistic, incremental ones. We tend to swing for the fences rather hitting solid singles. The problem with swinging for the fences is that you’re far more likely to strike out. If you haven’t run a quarter mile since junior high school gym class, don’t resolve to run a marathon within six months. It may work in the movies, but in real life, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment, injury and an unhealthy relapse. However, if you start with 20 minutes of walking a day with a goal of completing a 5K run in six months, your odds of success go up exponentially. And from there, you can talk about completing a 10K or half-marathon before year end with even more ambitious goals in 2023.

3. All or nothing mentality. New Year’s resolutions tend to encourage “all-or-nothing” thinking. Success is measured as either a complete win or a complete failure. The problem with such “all-or-nothing” goals is that they don’t allow for even minor slip-ups. Once you fall off the bandwagon, it’s easy to get discouraged and give up entirely. This is a big reason why so many folks abandon their resolutions by February, according to the studies and surveys referenced above.
4. Lack of specificity. New Year’s often resolutions fail because they’re too broad or too vague. “Read more,” “eat healthy foods,” “save more money,” or “fix my relationship” are examples of goals that lack any real specificity. This can be problematic for three reasons:
   a) They’re not actionable. It’s difficult to know what exactly you need to do to achieve your goal.
   b) They’re difficult to measure. It’s difficult to create mental milestones of success, as there’s no clearly defined end goal.
   c) They lack accountability. If a goal is too vague, it can seem more like an aspiration rather than a practical, real-world target. With no target to aim for, you aren’t really accountable for hitting anything.

5 tips for making resolutions stick

1. Be SMART. New Year’s resolutions are a form of behavior modification. To make this changing mindset stick, you want to be SMART about (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time Specific). If your goal is to lose 30 pounds by July 4^th weekend (roughly 6 months from now), that means you should strive to lose five pounds per month or 1.25 pounds per week. That’s pretty specific and realistic and certainly very measurable. Small sub-goals are much easier to strive for than trying to reach a daunting, overwhelming task like “Lose 30 pounds this year.”
2. Be consistent. As the old saying goes: “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. My recent post Consistency Is Not Boring has more.

3. Turn resolutions into ingrained habits. For example:

• Resolution: Quit smoking vs. Habit: Stop smoking that one cigarette you have every morning after breakfast.
• Resolution: Eat healthy food vs. Habit: Start substituting that one daily morning pastry for a banana.
• Resolution: Lose weight vs. Habit: Every evening after work, go for a two to three-minute run or walk around the block.
• Resolution: Manage stress vs. Habit: Meditate for two to three minutes every morning after you wake up.
• Resolution: Improve finances vs. Habit: Save an extra 2 percent of each paycheck and put half into my 401(k)s low-cost index fund and the other half into a high-yield savings account at my bank.

*** For more on making resolutions habit forming, see Sahil Bloom’s 30 for 30 Challenge.

4. Take resolutions for a test drive in December. After following Steps 1-3 above (preferably soon after Thanksgiving), see what it’s like to pursue the “new you.” Have you bitten off more than you can chew? Is attainment of the goal going to interfere with your work, make you too fatigued to concentrate or compromise relationships with co-workers and family? If so, it’s time to dial back your goals before you go live with your resolutions in 2023. Your friends, family and co-workers will thank you and be more supportive of you when you’re not manic or irritable all the time.
5. Have an accountability partner. As the old saying goes, “it’s easier to let down yourself than it is to let down someone you trust.” Share your resolution with a person you can trust who won’t let you make excuses or talk you out of striving toward your goal.

Conclusion

Eating an entire elephant is impossible. But taking it one bite at a time makes a daunting challenge seem manageable. Tweak your resolutions all year long (See Step 4) and don’t beat yourself up for falling short. Instead of throwing in the towel, dust yourself, get back on the horse and set more realistic goals for the remainder of 2023.

As Napolean Hill famously said: “A goal is just a dream with a deadline.”

What’s your take? I’d love to hear from you.

#resolutions, #selfimprovement, #dedication, #goalsetting, #30for30

Two thirds of advisors (68%) who responded to our weekly Insta-poll believe this Holiday season has been more stressful than usual from both a business and personal perspective. So, after another difficult and stressful year, don’t beat yourself up for overeating, overspending, over-pouring and oversleeping a little during the Holiday season. Same goes for your clients. You deserve it.

Just know that your ambitious plans to get back into fitness, financial and emotional shape after January 1^st are not likely to stick. Research shows four out of five New Year’s resolutions (81%) will be abandoned by mid-January unless you started test-driving them around Thanksgiving time. The idea is to start making realistic tweaks and adjustments to your resolutions before you post them on your bulletin board and social media accounts for all to see. But in today’s A.D.D. instant gratification society, most people don’t have the patience for that.

Go real with your resolutions

Again, resolutions don’t fail because we lack willpower or discipline; it’s more about bad timing. When we launch resolutions on January 1st, we are making a change based on a calendar date when we think we are prepared to change our lives dramatically. It’s even more difficult to hit the ground running when you’ve gone a month or more without being on our A-Game.

Yet, this mindset has been around for over 4,000 years, ever since the ancient Babylonians used the start of the new calendar year to crown a new king, or to proclaim their loyalty to an existing king. It’s also when they swore to their gods they would pay off debts and promised to return borrowed goods to their neighbor. The penalty for breaking one’s resolutions back then were a lot harsher than they are today. But even then, the “stick rate” wasn’t as a high as you would think.

Harvard Business School professor, Amy Cuddy believes resolutions don’t last because too often we’re setting ourselves up for failure and self-loathing. “We tend to set unreasonable aims for ourselves and then experience negative emotions and a lack of motivation when we don’t reach them,” she observed. “Failing to meet the unreasonable goals we set for ourselves can in turn take a negative toll on our self-worth,” added Cuddy.

Sound familiar?

Researcher and author Richard Wiseman, agrees with Cuddy that we set goals that are too high or too audacious and that we also tend to be too impatient. He believes another big cause of resolution failure is that we tend to sprint out of the gate in search of immediate “returns” rather than taking “baby steps” that will take some time before they move the needle.

If you’ve been a coach potato your entire adult life, don’t resolve to run a marathon within six months. It may work in the movies, but in real life, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment, injury and an unhealthy relapse. However, if you start with 20 minutes of walking a day with a goal of completing a 5K run in six months, your odds of success go up exponentially. And from there, you can talk about completing a 10K or half-marathon before year end with even more ambitious goals in 2023.

Beating the odds

Trying to get your clients to modify their financial behavior in the new year can be quite challenging, too. But it can be highly rewarding if true changes result, Glenn Freed, Ph. D told me. Freed, chief investment strategist of New York City-based Syntax Advisors told me you’ll further cement your status as a client’s most trusted advisor if you can “frame” your legal, charitable or financial planning discussions around New Year’s resolutions. “You can have discussions in person or through a client newsletter. The key is to use these resolutions as a way to check in with clients throughout the year,” added Freed.

The experts seem to agree on one thing: to make any resolution stick, it has to become an ingrained habit. For example: 

• Resolution: Quit smoking vs. Habit: Stop smoking that one cigarette you have every morning after breakfast.
• Resolution: Eat healthy food vs. Habit: Start substituting that one daily morning pastry for a banana.
• Resolution: Lose weight vs. Habit: Every evening after work, go for a two to three-minute run or walk around the block.
• Resolution: Manage stress vs. Habit: Meditate for two to three minutes every morning after you wake up.
• Resolution: Improve finances vs. Habit: Save an extra 2 percent of each paycheck and put half into my 401(k)s low-cost index fund and the other half into a high-yield savings account at my bank.

By immediately breaking down each resolution and seeing what the smallest habit could be, experts say your chances of succeeding will be 50 percent higher. And if even these incremental habits are hard to stick to, don’t give up. Tweak them so they’re manageable.

Conclusion

High performing advisors help their clients follow up on resolutions not only in December, but throughout the year. Framing the financial planning discussion in this way at the start of the year and then following up consistently can be an effective way to help clients stay on the path to financial resolution success. Make 2022 a great year no matter what COVID, the markets, the economy and geopolitical factors throw at us.

This new year, there’s only one resolution I guarantee you that I’ll keep: It’s to getting better at making resolutions.

Tell me what you think.

#productivity, #resolutions, #accountability