Before You Make a Resolution, Audit Your Priorities
I learned at my high school job handing out towels at the YMCA—where the “New Year, new me” crowds noticeably thin out around the third week of January — that resolution-keeping is a fickle enterprise. For most of us, the flipping of a calendar does not create a new person. At best, we get a slightly wiser version of the same one.
However! One unsung benefit of a full year’s added wisdom is learning how to set better goals and make better promises to yourself than you did the last time around. You can do that by auditing your priorities.
That’s a smart thing to do any time of year, not just January 1, writes time-management expert and productivity whiz Laura Vanderkam: “[Take] a moment to look at the underlying desires behind your resolutions… That’s the key insight for making new resolutions — and making them stick.”
