Why New Year’s resolutions fail: The problem of implementation
Yesterday, New Year’s resolutions came to mind as I was writing year-end reports to my coaching clients.
A blog post on goal-setting and achievement that I wrote earlier this year, Don’t waste your time planning, unless…, cited research showing that 92% of people who make New Year’s resolutions never actually achieve them. While I recognize that what we resolve to achieve in the New Year can be a casual goal without a lot of commitment behind it, to me it seems silly to put a marker out there and then ignore it or only half-heartedly go after it.
Are you a resolutionist?
As a long-time running and triathlon coach and athlete, I have all too often seen people who resolve to improve their fitness and commit to going to the gym frequently…and then quickly disappearing, never to be seen again. We coaches and gym frequenters label these people “resolutionists.” In the trade, January 10th is referred to as “Quitters Day” because that’s when the resolutionists are most likely to abandon pursuit of their fitness goal.
The 8% success rate for New Year’s resolution achievement may be a worst-case example of our failure to attain big goals, but it brings home the point that having a goal is only the first step in achieving it. The missing elements are a plan to achieve the goal and then implementing the plan.
The missing elements
The business clients I coach know how zealous I am about them having an current strategic business plan and actually executing that plan. That’s the bedrock on which my business coaching practice is built. A mass of research findings show that those who have a plan are demonstrably more successful than those who don’t have a plan, and yet nearly half of all organizations don’t have a plan and 70% of those with a plan either fail to implement their plan or implement it poorly.
Highlights for 2024 that I listed in my year-end client reports underscore the great things that can happen when you have a good plan and then work to implement the goals in that plan. And, I would love to think that the good plan and the great execution that achieves goals come not only from my clients’ efforts but also from them working with me as their coach throughout the year.
Consider these examples of the achievements appearing on my clients’ scoreboards:
Closing Rate: Your efforts raised the closing rate on demos to 32%.
New Line of Business: Your new business line produced 19 jobs and $314,014 in revenue.
Referrals: You gained 32 jobs through current and previous customer referrals.
C-Suite Membership: You achieved your goal – early!
LinkedIn: You showed your value and cultivated your following on LinkedIn.
Speaking: You found and took advantage of speaking opportunities.
Financial: You hit your numbers for 2024!
Acquisition: You did it! You added seven employees and six vehicles and cover Central Maryland.
Sales: You moved toward your consistent $60,000 monthly goal.
Margins: Your margins were great: Gross margin 74% and net margin 42%.
Avatar Work: 80% of the work you have attracted fits your avatars.
Billing: You are sticking to your higher rate for new customers.
Business Development: You increased the scope of your networking and grew company revenue.
Sales and profitability: You grew monthly revenue beyond break-even.
Opening the Business: You did it!
The Brand: You are living the brand by striving for excellence in the guest experience and your facilities.
Boundaries: By taking time off and closing in the winter, you are able to avoid burn-out, recharge, and plan.
Connections: You sowed the seeds for greater success by making community and business connections.
Products: You developed more products for sale while continuing existing lines.
Core Market: You worked to gain sales in the market where you have the greatest competitive advantage.
Effective Execution: You built your reputation by providing great service and meeting client obligations.
Trading Up: Constrained by capacity limits, you swapped in more ideal clients.
New App: You launched the new app and started to get clients using it.
Productivity: You boosted productivity by tapping technology and others.
Income: You grew top-line revenue by 15%.
Increased Referrals: Your efforts generated substantial client referrals and COI opportunities.
Income Growth: You exceeded $1,000,000 gross!
Asset Growth: You smashed your 7% goal with asset growth of 21%!
I will wager that many of these things - maybe not 92% of them but a lot of them - would not have been achieved if my clients did not have a plan and did not focus on implementation with the on-going help of their coach.
Solving the problem of implementation
While implementation is not rocket science, let’s recognize that some things are harder to achieve than other things.
In my book on planning, AHEAD: Strategy is the way to a better future, I postulated a law that speaks to the varying difficulty of executing different plans to reach goals, close at hand and more lofty:
The Law of Strategic Difficulty
The greater the differential between the current course of the organization and the envisioned future for the organization,
The more entrenched the organization is in its current vision and direction, and,
The fewer resources the organization has that will help it move to the new vision...
The more profound the strategies need to be and the more difficult the strategies will be to implement to get the organization to the vision.
I offer this law as evidence that I recognize that some things are very hard to achieve, be it, for example, successfully launching a new business, raising a Google ranking from 3 stars to 4.8 stars, turning around a key employee who is a cancer in the organization, finding more hours in the day when already working 24/7, or developing and bringing to market a new and different offering. But even in these instances, a plan and smart, diligent goal execution, driven by the accountability, independent perspective, guidance, and support of a qualified business coach, offer the best hope of achieving the goal or, at least, creating a positive out of what previously was a sore spot or gaping abyss.
Implementation checklist
Here, distilled from deep research and long experience in successful implementation, is my handy-dandy checklist of what to ask yourself when you are setting out goals that you intend to achieve:
Accountability. Have you assigned accountability for goal achievement (if the one responsible is not you)? Without clear accountability, actions fundamental to effective implementation do not take place, despite general buy-in.
Action plan. Do you have a plan for goal achievement? Goals are outcomes, that is, results. They are what you aim to achieve. Actions are what you do to achieve your goals. Your goals and actions should be aligned. Planned actions to achieve goals should be specific and discrete. Goal achievement usually requires multiple, sequenced actions, that is, an action plan.
Alignment. Are your goals aligned with your values? Effective goals are based on our high values and ethics. Studies show that the more we align our goals with our core values and principles, the more likely we are to achieve and benefit from them.
Believability. Are your goals believable? Goals need to be challenging, but also believable to be effective. If you don’t think you can actually reach a goal, you won’t.
Commitment. Have you actively committed to your goals? Written them down, signed a contract, committed to another person whom you respect, or done something else beyond just saying that it’s your goal? Research shows that active commitment directly affects action.
Communications. Are you promoting the goal and its achievement at every opportunity? If not, why not? Silence about what you have set out as important to you signals that you may not care or don’t really think it will happen.
Difficult, but not too difficult. Are your goals difficult…but not too difficult? Research on goal-setting shows an inverted U-shaped relationship between difficulty and performance. Easy goals lead to weak efforts, but so do goals that are too hard.
Engagement. Have you engaged others in goal achievement? Achievement is more likely when you share the burden and have others whose efforts are aim at the same goal.
Focus. Will you keep plan execution in the spotlight as of utmost importance ? Otherwise. others will tend to fall back to their prior activities. Have a specific focus on reporting progress and results. Have regular update sessions. Be clear that plan implementation and goal achievement are priorities.
Information. Does information about implementation progress flow to those who need it? If not, you are reducing the likelihood that you will get meaningful help from those who can help in goal attainment.
Investment. Do you have the resources in place for successful implementation? Without the necessary resources, plan implementation is ineffectual or the implementation program dies because the necessary people, funds, and other resources are not devoted to execution.
Leadership. Are you visibly engaged in goal achievement? As we asked about communications, if not, why not? Lack of visible engagement in goal achievement can signal that you may not care or don’t really think it will happen.
Measurement. Do you have a system to measure progress in implementation? Measurement brings attention to progress - or the lack of it - and prompts further steps to achieve the goal.
Specificity and Challenge. Are your goals specific and challenging? Research shows that specific and challenging goals lead to higher performance than easy goals, "do your best" goals, or no goals.
Targets. Are decision parameters and performance targets around your goal clear? Fuzziness invites failure or at least poor implementation.
Visualization. Have you visualized roadblocks in implementation and thought about how you will address them? An important step to help you achieve your goals is visualizing difficulties that might come up in pursuing the goal and deciding in advance how you will handle these challenges.
Written, with clarity. Are your goals clear and written? One research study showed that people who wrote down their goals were 42% more likely to achieve them than those who didn't write them down.
If your goals are important to you and your organization, then use the checklist to help assure that you will reach them.
In the case of your New Year’s resolutions, if they are not just flights of fancy, they may be worth being subjected to our implementation checklist, as well.
See you at the gym, not only in January but throughout the year!
