Why You Shouldn’t Make Professional Resolutions this Year

by Solange Lopes | Dec 16, 2013 | Career | 1 comment

Photo: blackloveandmarriage.com

A new year is looming near, and before we can say “Happy New Year“, it will be here, what with its slew of New Year’s resolutions that we won’t follow through, plans that we’ll forget about after about a week (or a day), and promises that we’ll most likely break…Like that spankin’ brand new gym membership on January 2nd, that will turn into a stale commitment in just a few weeks, along with our 1/2 pack of hard-earned abdominal muscle…Depressing? Yes! Annoying? Hell, yes! Impossible to change? Nope….

I decided to stop subscribing tothe “New Year’s resolutions” annual membership a few professional years ago, as I noticed that the longer the list of things I promised myself (and others) to do, the shorter the list of accomplishments I actually managed to produce. You know, things like cleaning my inbox, keeping my to-do list up-to-date, packing my lunch, being more vocal at work, or getting that super promotion….A few days later, after the feeling of newness wears off and real life, along with new projects to start, old assignments to fix, new deadlines and old complacency, set in, yet again, there go my overcrowded inbox, neglected to-do list, and… where is my lunch at again? Yeah, right….
Truth is, only 8% of all people actually turn their New Year’s resolutions into actual achievements. For the remaining 92% of us, we just keep recycling them for the next year…And why exactly is that? Well, probably because somehow some way we forget to ask ourselves the right questions before committing to the “perfect” (and unattainable) plan of action… Simple questions like, say:

• What do I want?: What do I want out of my career? Many of us will undoubtedly answer “success. Yet, how do we define success? Would it be in terms of flexibility, money, advancement? What do YOU want? And if you think you want it, you may want to think again how hard you really do….
• Why do I want what I want? What is it about that promotion, those flexible hours, the extra money that makes is so worth it? Is it the extra time we’ll get to spend with our families? The opportunity to pursue this other career? The gratification of knowing that we can do it? What is it? When you start putting a name on your motivation, it starts taking shape, form, and possibly, reality….
• Who else is part of my decision tree? We are not alone in these important career decisions and resolutions we make. Most likely, there are people around us, before us, after us, who matter much and whose impact weighs a lot on the commitments we make. Whether it be a significant other, children, families, or the desire (and duty) to make a difference and open doors for other corporate sisters coming after us, our actions and decisions are loud advocates (or deterrents) for others….So it may be worth defining who these “others” are, and delineating how our paths will, and should affect them…

While these sound like basic questions, they are some of the hardest questions to answer, and some of the most painful at times…And these may very well uncover some hard (and surprising) truths about who we truly are, and who we truly aspire to be…Let’s prepare for and welcome these truths, in the awareness and realization that when it comes to starting on a new path, a new year, or any new decision, the process is at times as important, if not more, than the outcome itself….

Will you skip the professional resolutions this year?

The Corporate Sister.