Be It Resolved

Here is an article from a Seattle area newspaper with some professional advice on how to make and keep your new year’s resolutions. Some thoughts from my experience with resolutions are set out below.

Somewhere during the years of running a solo law office, I started making new year’s resolutions as a sort of one year business plan. Since the office and personal life of a lawyer can be quite integrated, I decided to flip the office resolution page over and make personal resolutions on the other side. I put them in one sheet protector, back to back, so they could make it through the year without getting dog-eared or discarded. In retirement, my sheet protector has writing only on one side, but if you still work for a living, consider having a set on each side.

Ten is a good number to use, carrying weight like the Ten Commandments, but also levity like Letterman’s Top Ten. With ten, you have ten chances to do better. Instead of saying the glass is half empty, you can say it is 5/10 full. Continuing with the liquid metaphor, water down your goals. Lowering your aspirations means you have a higher chance of success. As the psychologist points out in the newspaper article, resolutions are part of the process of change. The first success is actually making the list of resolutions. As you get more experienced, you can include a few harder ones in the list of ten. I don’t place my ten in any particular order or rank.

I like weasel words in resolutions, such as “consider”, “start”, “continue”, “work with” and “expand”. I don’t quantify the goals in absolute terms like “50 pounds” or “five hours a week”. I prefer relative terms like “some” and “more”.

I keep the sheet protector somewhere on my desk top area, so I can dig it out when I think of it, or as more often happens, I can quickly glance at it when I accidentally run across it. Remember “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. You have all year to work on making progress, so don’t burn yourself out before Valentine’s Day.

Give yourself a progress report. As you come across your list every so often, read through it quickly and make mental note of how you are doing. In the middle of the year, pull the list out of the protector and pencil in a letter grade next to each resolution. This will give you guidance for the second half of the year. Then score the list again at the end of the year, and use your report card for making the next year list. A resolution will often be included for several years and then maybe dropped, either as you earn an A and no longer need to work on it, or because after years of a low grade without progress you realize it will probably never change. Weasel words can be used to water down a perennial failure, but if liberal watering does not bring growth, you may need to recognize it is dead.

Here are my 2005 grades: B, B, C, D, C+, B-, C-, B, E, B. But what were my resolutions you ask? Here is my final tip: Keep your list to yourself, so you can credit yourself for every encouragement - and have no one else to blame for any discouragement.