To many of us, New Year’s Resolutions tend to be more like wish lists than “contracts for change.” With this in mind, your friends at BizVid Communications, San Diego’s video production leader, offers insights you may find helpful as you revisit your personal and business expectations in this new season. Typically, the manner in which one applies these three little words (New Year’s Resolution), could mean the difference (in your life or the life of your company) between ascending into the strata of success, and floundering below.
“Resolution” Defined:
Let’s take a look at the operative word in this “New Year’s Resolution” phrase to exact a deeper understanding of what it may take for each of us to transform wishes into reality. Let’s excavate the word “resolution.” Derivatives of this word include “Resolve,” and “Resolute.” Neither are passive words, rather proactive. And, neither suggest creating a wish list for things it would be nice to do on yours and/or your company’s behalf.
Defined, Merriam-Webster tells us that the transitive verb “resolve” suggests dealing with something successfully, finding an answer to, or making something clear and understandable. In contrast, the word “dissolve” implies something that evaporates or disintegrates before your very eyes. Though both carry within them the world “solve,” only one possesses the staying power to transform desires into realities.
The Meaning of “Resolute”:
Mariam Webster has an interesting take on the word “Resolute”, which is tied to the intent behind “New Year’s Resolutions” … They say, in one sense, it refers to a resolute person. They say essentially “when you resolve a question or problem, you come to a conclusion and once you’ve reached a conclusion you can proceed to act. So, in your New Year’s resolutions, you resolve- or make up your mind- to do something. Unfortunately, says Webster, New Year’s resolutions aren’t a good illustration of the meaning of resolute, since only about one in ten actually seems to succeed.” Humm: one in ten keep their New Year’s Resolutions. Thank you for the honesty and clarity on the matter, Merriam-Webster.
Further, as an adjective, says Webster, Resolute can mean “to be bold and steady.” Sadly, only the word “bold” seems to apply to typical resolutions. “Steady?” Not so much.
Quotable Quotes:
To get an overall sense regarding the topic of New Year’s Resolutions, we thought we should look into what demonstrative others had to say. As such, we can garner a broader point of view for our concluding statement on the topic.
An earlier Newsweek article quotes, “Hilda Burke, psychotherapist, couples’ counselor and author, suggests it is important to be conscious of the psychology behind the urge to make New Year’s resolutions in the modern age.” She said: “From my experience working with clients—most of us make resolutions that are ‘action’-based, i.e.: I want to learn a new language, meet a partner, lose 10 pounds, and get a new job.” Burke continued, saying, “While it can be gratifying (particularly) for our egos to make good on our intentions, they often fall short in making us feel truly fulfilled.”
“We imagine that the new 2.0 ‘resolved’ version of ourselves will be someone that we actually like and that others will find more attractive/intelligent/interesting. When I work with a client and we explore what’s behind a resolution, it’s often the desire to feel a certain way—to feel more accepting of oneself, to feel loved/admired by others.”
“While it’s certainly no bad thing to have the intention of becoming stronger/fitter/healthier or to exercise our brains and creativity, what invariably lurks beneath resolutions is the belief that in our current state, we’re somehow not OK.”
According to a popular website entitled “Enterprise Apps Today” and writer Barry Elad, here are some noteworthy New Year’s resolution statistics.
“Every year millions of people decide to start their life anew on the 1st of January. These people have at least one New Year resolution every year but not all people succeed to complete it. Successfully accomplishing determined goals requires a lot of hard work and determination.”
According to the aforementioned article, some telling bullet points include:
- The majority of the people quit with the New Year goals on the second Friday of the month.
- 35% of the people fail to complete their New Year’s resolution because of losing motivation.
- While 19% of people say that they were too busy to follow their set goals for the New Year.
- 18% of people said they had other priorities in their life or had shifted their goals.
- Other reasons for failing the New Year Resolution were given by 28% of the people.
- As per the New Year’s resolution statistics, other people said that they couldn’t complete the goal because they had too many checklists.
BizVid Summary:
Whether or not you and your company hale from a burgeoning community like we do (BizVid is the video production leader in Carlsbad, California and beyond), if you are making New Year’s proclamations, as many do, you should take them seriously. To us, these declarations can bolster who you are in the eyes of your employees, peers, customers and clients, or identify you as a person or company who makes claims that they are not likely to keep. We must ask ourselves, “Whom would we prefer to partner with?” By the way, here is a resolution we keep every year. When we make a commitment, we keep that commitment.
Happy New Year, BizVid Communications’ friends!