Something I’ve become more convinced of as time goes on is that New Year’s resolutions should focus on quality-of-life improvements, not quantitative goals.
Far too many people use New Year’s resolutions as though they are performance-based workplace goals. Such goals are almost always centered around production and output rather than quality.
However, life is neither a performance nor a production. Life is an experience, and New Year’s resolutions should focus on improving the quality of that experience, not increasing output.
What Qualitative Outcomes Look Like
People often set quantitative goals because they’re easier to define than qualitative outcomes. To do the latter requires serious reflection about how you want your life to improve, and much of the time the simpler option is to just say you’ll eat less, work out more, and read an extra book or two.
I’ve been as guilty as anyone else of avoiding the hard reflection. I’ve set goals like “I want to lose 20 lbs. by summer” or “I’d like to read 10 books on Medieval European history.” Those aren’t bad goals, in and of themselves, but they miss the main question that I should be asking:
Why?
And when I stop to think about it, there’s almost always a deeper “why” behind these types of quantitative goals.
Why do I want to learn more about Medieval European history?
- I like fictional stories set in medieval times (or in fantasy settings resembling such times), and a better understanding of actual history can help me enjoy such stories even more.
- I’ve written stories with medieval settings, and a better understanding can help me improve the authenticity of those stories and future ones like them.
- I have friends who have studied medieval culture and literature, and I want to be able to engage with them in more meaningful conversations on such topics.
When looking at it from this perspective, I realize that my resolution isn’t really to read more books on the topic, but to become better acquainted with medieval history overall so that I can increase enjoyment in multiple areas of my life where I already find pleasure.
This isn’t to say that setting a goal of reading more books on medieval history is bad. In fact, such a goal can be a decent way to achieve my resolution. But it’s not the only way, and if my resolution revolves around improving my quality of life, then I don’t have to fret about abandoning that goal when it no longer serves my real purpose.
Journey with Purpose, Destined for Quality
“Life’s a journey, not a destination,” right?
Actually, that’s bad advice for anyone who wants to achieve specific quality-of-life improvements.
The quote is often misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. As Quote Investigator has pointed out, the closest Emerson statement to that sentiment comes from his essay on “Experience“:
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
Emerson’s meaning is quite different than the modern adage. He does not claim a person should have no destination. Rather, he says each person should live their life such that if it ended suddenly, they would have been satisfied with the road they took.
His declaration is mindful and epicurean, not arbitrary. As such, setting qualitative resolutions is more in line with Emerson’s actual quote than the “journey, not destination” idea.
In truth, both destination and journey are important:
- A destination without any clue about how to get there is a wish.
- Likewise, setting off in a direction without purpose is aimless.
You don’t need to set resolutions to wish or goals to wander. And their’s nothing particularly wrong about either wishing or wandering. But without a qualitative outcome in mind and an idea of how to achieve it, you’re likely to wind up feeling frustrated and stuck.
To state it plainly:
Resolutions are destinations, while goals are the methods you use to reach them.
Just like you can reach a physical destination by using various means of travel — legs, car, train, plane, boat, or whatever other methods you can think of — you can often improve your quality of life by achieving various goals.
In other words, setting a goal based on your resolution is tantamount to mapping a route to your destination. The resolution gives you purpose, while the goal defines your method (or methods) of travel.
Set TRAM Goals Instead of SMART Goals
A lot of people like to use so-called SMART goals, but I avoid that business acronym for my own personal goals.
Since life is an experience, not a business, I prefer to set TRAM goals. It uses four of the five letters of SMART goals, but it refocuses the emphasis in two key ways.
For one thing, a TRAM goal puts the important factors of timeliness and relevance up front.
To spell it out, a TRAM goal is:
- Timely: It’s something you’re doing now until the time set to maintain your resolve.
- Relevant: It contributes to reaching your destination, even if it’s not the final leg of the journey.
- Attainable: It’s something you have the ability and means to achieve.
- Measurable: There’s a clear way to monitor progress and know when you’re done.
Yes, TRAM drops the “S” for “Specific.” That’s because if your TRAM goal meets the other four criteria, it’ll already be specific. But if you like the reminder, you can tack it on at the end.
The second advantage that TRAM goals have over SMART goals is that the acronym offers a reminder about the temporary nature of the conveyance. It’s one way to reach the qualitative outcomes that you’re looking to achieve.
It’s like a “tram” bringing you to your destination of a better life.
How does that work with my resolution to learn more about Medieval European history? I can set a TRAM goal like the following:
Between now and June 30 (T), I will read 10 books on Medieval European history (R). I will set aside 1 hour per day toward this goal (A), and I will record completed pages/books weekly on my Goodreads profile (M).
This offers sufficient specificity to work on the goal, while keeping the larger destination of my resolution open in case I realize later that a different goal would improve my outcome.
A New New Year’s Resolution to Consider
As I said at the start, New Year’s resolutions should focus on improving the quality of your life, not on quantitative goals.
The fact is, New Year’s resolutions shouldn’t relate to a single year or even a five-year plan. They should focus on how to continue improving your life over time. That’s not to say that you should never change your resolutions as time waxes on, but I bet as you grow older, you’ll notice that they change less as less.
The new year is a convenient time for reassessing what you want. But perhaps one of the resolutions to consider is taking a long-term view of the life you want to achieve. If you’re old enough to have read this far, then you likely have enough experience to know what’s important to you over time.
