To Stick to Your New Year’s Resolution, Get It Out of Your Head

Why you’ll never reach a goal by fixating on it

Herbert Lui
Forge
Published in
4 min readJan 2, 2020

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Photo: Moyo Studio/iStock/Getty Images Plus

In a fresh new year when everyone is buzzing with motivation and plans to crush it, here’s a killjoy: 88% of all resolutions end in failure.

It turns out that setting a specific resolution is simple. What we do after that is the hard part, a lesson that some learn more quickly than others: 27% of people give up on their New Year’s resolution within the first week.

To keep yourself on track, you might consider adopting a strategy that’s practiced by some of the most successful people and companies: After setting a goal, get it out of your head. Then turn your focus to creating the conditions for your goal to happen.

Think of it this way: Let’s say you’re a gardener. You want to see beautiful flowers, but you can’t spend your days controlling how each specific seed will bloom. You just need to trust that if you follow your usual practices and rituals, the garden will flourish.

Whatever your garden happens to be, these three strategies will help you create the right conditions to succeed.

Measure inputs, not outputs

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Herbert Lui
Forge
Writer for

Covering the psychology of creative work for content creators, professionals, hobbyists, and independents. Author of Creative Doing: https://www.holloway.com/cd