According to a study, only 8% of people stick through their New Year Resolutions through to the year’s end. And 80% of people reportedly forget their resolutions by Jan 12th!
So this begs the question: are resolutions fated to fail?
Many people think in a binary: you either achieve it 100% or it isn’t worth the effort.
Unfortunately, life is too complex for ‘All or Nothing’. It’s often about more or less. Economists call this thinking on the margins.
Let’s take your gym subscription. Say, the 6-month charge is Rs. 9,000 while the annual subscription is Rs. 13,000. That the yearly charges have lower per-month cost is obvious. Significantly, the last 6 months cost only Rs. 4000 if you pay annually. At this price, even sparing use of the gym would justify the money spent.
Take more generic instances. The convenience gap between Bike-A and Bike-B is insignificant compared to Bike-X vs. public transport. Likewise, the comfort gap between Car-A and Car-B is relatively low compared to Car-X vs. Bike-X.
Let’s apply this to writing. The first re-edit of an article yields rich results. Because it focuses on the flow, structure, polish and cohesiveness, which writers might miss during drafting. The second re-edit is less fruitful, the third even less. You would think twice before expending efforts for a 3rd re-edit, because the benefit it yields is disproportionately less in comparison to the 1st and even 2nd re-edit.
Thinking on the margins means coming down your ivory towers and making pragmatic choices based on your realities. It means making tiny, incremental improvements that culminate into grand success one day.
Most New Year Resolutions are glorified wish-lists. They are not anchored to your realities. By aiming too high, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
If you’re looking at reducing weight, the choice is not between starving and eating recklessly; it’s whether you can avoid that dessert and ice-cream. If working on a big project, you don’t have to choose between being obsessed about it and letting it slip until it escalates. You also can timebox select hours of work-week for the project and ensure continuous progress throughout the timeline.
It’s good to have goals. It’s better to have systems.
As Scott Adams said: Systems > Goals.
Aiming to finish a book in 2024 is a goal. Writing 1 hour each day is a system.
Accomplishing a goal is subject to many external factors. Writing 1 hour every day, by comparison, is vastly within your control.
For 2024, let’s just expand horizons in areas that matter. Pick up your priorities from 2023 and push them forward. If you have to take a brand new goal, let it be in terms of effort rather than results.
Let’s resolve to just make 2024 better than 2023. Happy 2024!
Musings by Madhav 
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