January is synonymous with two things; being cold and New Year’s resolutions. Gym memberships skyrocket annually as people resolve to lose weight, gain mass, improve their bodies and their minds. By February normal service is resumed in almost every aspect of their lives. The same can be said of all resolutions, including resolutions made regarding your business. Business owners and entrepreneurs resolve to make this year bigger than the last almost as a rule, but they all make smaller resolutions periodically throughout the year; to land better clients, hire better people and to learn from any mistakes immediately after making them. The only difference is we often just refer to them as ‘goals’.

What’s the difference then? Well, resolutions (especially those of the New Year variety) often share almost all the same characteristics as wish-list. They are often emotional decisions made with little or no thought as to how to follow through on them and make them a reality and they are often undertaken with even less true commitment. A goal, on the other hand, is a target, not a wish. “I wish I had a better body, think I’ll join a gym” is a perfect example of a resolution, whereas, “this year I want to improve my physique in the following areas, and to do that I’ll have to do ‘x, y and z’ four days a week and I’ll have to change my diet to ‘x, y and z’. By March my target is ‘x’, by June my target will be ‘y’ and then by October I want to have achieved ‘z’.

In short, goals are very focused bite sized achievements that are well researched and worked towards with a discipline that is easy to maintain that when met will have succeeded in achieving more than the sum of their individual parts. Resolutions are vague, un researched and often emotional off the cuff responses to something you perceive to be negative.

Start 2020 the right way, with a goal not a resolution.