I never used to be interested in making New Year’s resolutions, and I still don’t like calling them ​“resolutions”. Resolutions imply that you need, in the immortal words of Dave Grohl, ​“a little bit of resolve” to see them through. And it makes me feel like they need to take a whole year to complete, when in reality some goals may only take two weeks to implement.1

A lot of people I respect and admire have written out in detail what their resolutions are. I have a list, but I think most of them are boring. They mostly revolve around changes in my personal life, which I don’t mind sharing:

  • In June, I’m marrying the love of my life (insert mandatory cuteness here). I’m thinking a lot about how to win the 2015 Award World’s Best Husband after the wedding day, and about the goals my fiancée and I have set for ourselves in our life together.
  • After the wedding, we’ll be living in Toronto — the ​“hub of the universe”, in case you’re not from Canada and aren’t familiar. I live about an hour from there now, but irregardless, it still implies a large shift in clientele and my current business relationships. I want to keep my business above water during this change. Apart from gaining deeper knowledge of my finances (which I have hired a bookkeeper for), I have no further business goals than that.2
  • My friends and I are launching the Wildfire Community this year, probably in the next month or so (I hope). I want to have a positive impact on my hometown of Guelph, even if that means I have to be involved in making it a better place from my future home in Toronto.

Most of my goals revolve around these circumstances, and as a result, all my goals involve being mindful as a spouse and as a leader. They involve looking after myself, so I can take better care of the people who are important to me. And they involve equipping the few people I lead to become better leaders than me, so they can make the world a better place than I alone could.

I know I don’t necessarily believe in ​“New Year’s resolutions”, but I do believe in mindfulness and in self-improvement. Setting manageable goals and coming up with an action plan to achieve them is important. And sharing what you’re attempting to do is important too, because it keeps you accountable.

So I’m sharing my goals here for prosperity. I hope that a year from now, when I look back on them, I’m able to recognize where I grew and where I re-aligned my priorities as the year progressed.

Footnotes

  1. Most New Year’s Resolutions seem to be about better habits, which really shouldn’t take longer than a couple weeks to implement if you strategize. It’s creating a strategy that’s so difficult. ↩︎

  2. Most people who have ​“business goals” that I’ve talked with are, in my estimation, faking it. For example: without a concrete marketing plan to develop stronger customer acquisition, increasing sales or customers by 10% is not a goal. It’s a pipe dream. Most business goals can be boiled down to a desire to remain sustainable as a business, and I don’t think there’s any shame in a business owner saying their goal is to be ​“sustainable”. ↩︎