New Year, Same You - Tips for Lawyers

New Year’s Resolutions are corny and stupid, based on a fictitious date rollover that has no real meaning.

And yet – I kind of love them anyway.

The start of the year remains a great time (often after a few days off) to take a look at what has been, and consider what might be coming. Specifically, many of us do a bit of goal setting for the year in the hope that we might be able to nudge the needle in a few areas towards various kinds of personal accomplishment and growth.

(Oh, I’m aware by the way that the current cool kids are all talking about creating “systems” rather than “goals”, presumably because they all read Atomic Habits. What I’m talking about in this article is conceptually similar but not quite identical).

And Yet…

By now, most new year’s resolutions set by most people have probably fallen by the wayside.

Perhaps they never got off the ground in the first place – the “I’ll stop doing X” or “I’ll start doing Y” just didn’t quite happen, and let’s be honest if you haven’t kicked things like that off by 10 January then you might as well just write off the rest of the year.

And while I won’t suggest that I’m the world’s greatest expert in personal achievement, I do see a few common and obvious reasons that the goals we set ultimately end up falling by the wayside.

I’ve picked three to focus on.

The Desire Isn’t There

Sometimes the goals that we set or the aspirations we have just don’t have enough oomph to them.

And so, while Goal X (run 5km, lose weight, invest $X) are all probably good ideas, the fact is that we just haven’t convinced ourselves that they’re very important.

Now – they end up on our goals list because they are positive things, but we just don’t really care that much about achieving them.

For a goal (particularly a difficult goal involving sustained effort) to be achieved we ideally need to have a fairly high level of care-factor about its achievement. That means a certain level of desire, or a certain level of loathing about the thing in question depending on the nature of the goal.

And you see this in practice: the post-operative goals are much more likely to be achieved than the “oh I guess I might do X” goals, simply because their importance has been higlighted.

So if you’re making complex goals, one of two options exist:

Only pick things you genuinely care deeply about achieving; or
Find a way to generate the necessary incentive (get the blood tests, do a fitness check, get a financial advisor to tell you how much your kids’ education is going to cost).

The Goal Isn’t Supported by Your Life Architecture

Goal or not, you’re exactly the same person that you were last year. The way you run your life generally is directly related to the success or otherwise of the goals you’ve set.

If 2025 is the year you decided to quit drinking, but you are still committed to Friday night outings, post-Golf relaxing at the 19th and hump-day lunch celebrations with “the crew”, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Similarly, if you’re aiming for promotion to Associate this year but don’t yet meet the criteria, simply turning up every day and doing the same thing as last year without implementing some structural changes to your day isn’t likely to cut the mustard.

The architecture of your life sets up what can and cannot be added to or removed from your day.

So if you need to engage in a certain number of marketing opportunities in order to tick the BD box on your promotion application, then as a general rule the “I’ve just got to get it done” approach is not likely to succeed. Instead, you need to ensure that you are planning your day in such a way to not just allow, but ease, the business development aspect to become part of your normal activities.

For example, as a general rule most people (and in particular the lawyers reading this) can’t just add “go running 1 hour a day” to an already full agenda and expect to pull that off without some structural changes to your day.

To get your life architecture aligned with your running goal, you might need to think about sleep, food, work hours, energy levels, clothes and washing, and companionship or accountability. What will get de-prioritised to make this goal a priority? What happens if someone schedules a professional breakfast? Do you skip the goal or is there another plan?

A good goal and a strong desire will not overcome a lifestyle that is incompatible with the accomplishment of the task. Even with a strong start, over time the difficulty of forcing the goal into your life rather than making space for it will mean that you are more likely to give up.

And making those changes might take more effort than you think, but if the goal is important than eeking out a bit of time to maximise its chances of success is probably worth it.

Despising the Small Things

Anything of significance that is difficult to achieve on a personal level is going to take some time.

And it’s easy to despite small beginnings.

You look at your $500 investments and cringe a bit, wondering why you haven’t secured your first $1m yet.

You’re increasing in competency and trust within your firm, but that feels a little intangible and can be difficult to feel like you’re achieving anything at all when it doesn’t come with a title or a few extra dollars.

However, there is a significant difference between “making slow progress” or “made some progress then had a setback” and “making no progress”.

Wrongly sparked demoralisation can be devastating when it comes to serious achievement, and sometimes leads to simply chucking the whole thing in the bin and giving up.

Don’t despise small beginnings. By all means measure and aspire for more, but progress is worthy of celebration, even before you’re at the end point.