New Year 2023! Goals vs Resolutions!

“My only resolution this year is to do nothing and achieve nothing–because I will be much happier when I inevitably break this resolution.” - ibid

2022 is in the rearview mirror: everyone is now adjusting to the new year after living with a global pandemic and a war that have impacted global supply chains, economies, and politics. It was a tough year for everyone, and now we have a chance to see how much better we can make our 2023 than 2022 was. 

Some people consider the new year a waste of time to make resolutions, as the best and only time to make resolutions and changes is now. Others believe that resolutions are just going to be forgotten and broken as we skip a day here and there and let things slip because we get caught in the exact same cycle or routine that made our prior years less than what we had hoped for them to be. This isn’t necessarily the case, though, as there are many ways to approach to make things happen. 

Here’s an idea: what is the difference between a resolution and a goal? In the simplest terms, a resolution is a personal promise to commit to something, whereas a goal is an objective that must be met. 

You can have a goal that you can reach in order to keep your resolution; for example: if Angels for Angels resolves to raise a certain amount by the first quarter, say $150,000, then we can have more than just the primary goal of raising $150,000 in that time period, we can have multiple goals along the way towards the ultimate goal, such as considering the amount of $50,000 raised in the first month as having reached a major goal post along the way, which is ⅓ of what we’ve set to raise.

Another way to look at it is that a goal is something that must happen, either you do it or you don’t, whereas a resolution is something you hope to achieve, whether it happens or not. Without a set goal, as well as checkpoints along the way, a resolution becomes wishful thinking. 

So what are your personal goals for 2023? Compare those to your resolutions. Try to find a way to make your personal and professional goals align with your resolutions, so that you have a way of organizing your aims and making them actionable steps as opposed to hoping, wishing, and dreaming. 

An example of a good goal to match a resolution might look like this:

I resolve to [raise $150k] for [such and such project] by [the end of the first quarter] by [working together with my colleagues to seek more donors, sponsors, and raising more interest, writing more grants, and creating media to generate interest]. I hold myself accountable to working towards this goal through promising to do the following actions: [finding more donors, writing a specific grant for them, working with my colleagues to make informative material]. When I have achieved my goal, I will seek to go beyond it because yes, I can!

If you can achieve your goal, try to go beyond it as that sample affirmation is worded. You not only create actionable steps and focus, you create a means to challenge yourself to do more and grow beyond what you initially believed yourself capable of doing before. Where you find yourself in the future–be it a few months from now, a few days from now, or a few years from now, is completely open. Without a goal, you can’t set a resolution to follow effectively. So set your goals first, then resolve to achieve them, otherwise, you’ll end up purchasing gym membership for the third year in a row and quitting after six weeks, you’ll promise to read more books and end up looking at YouTube on your mobile phone using free WiFi at the library, and you’ll imagine writing The Great American Novel and have a blank document on your computer desktop because it stays in your head.