Forget Resolutions — Do a Past Year Review Instead

The things we desperately long for today are universal and timeless. However, they are elusive and difficult to sustain in this tech-frenzied, time-crushing world. To get the things we want we make New Years’ Resolutions. A better approach is to start your year with a prior year review and seeing what worked and what did not work.

Kathy Caprino conducted a survey and asked people

If you could say in one word what you want more of in life, what would that be?”

The table below is the ten most often mentioned.  The “biggest challenges” are quotes from respondents.

Things People Want In Life But Can’t Seem To Get

New Years’ Resolutions

A week ago, many of us made New Years’ Resolutions.

The populace New Year resolutions include,

• 35% want to lose weight
• 33% want to get fitter
• 31% want to eat more healthily
• 15% want to take better care of their appearance
• 14% want to see more of friends and family
• 12% want to have a better work-life balance
• 12% want more time for themselves
• 11% want to drink less (or stop)
• 5% want to quit smoking

How long do people stick to their commitments?

About one in three people keep their resolutions. Do not feel too bad if you give up in a brief period as:

• 43% of people give up in less than two weeks or less
• 66% of people give up in one month or less
• 80% of people give up in three months or less
• 86% of people give up in a year or less

A past year review

I have found 'past year reviews' more informed, valuable, and actionable than half-blindly looking forward with full resolutions.” — Tim Ferriss

Ferriss has been conducting these reviews since 2011. It takes about an hour. Ferriss’ approach looks like this:

• Create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE (I like to do it in Word, but a sheet of paper works fine).
• Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
• For each week, note any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that week. Record them in their respective columns.
• Once you have gone through the past year, look at your list and ask, “What 20 percent of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
• Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders put “MUST-DO” at the top. Now start scheduling more of them in the upcoming Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities, events, and commitments that you know work. It is not real until it is in your schedule.
• Take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top. Put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the next few weeks. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so do not put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, fear of missing out (FOMO), or other nonsense.

Removing the negative creates a void. That is why it is essential to get the positive things on your calendar ASAP. Your days will be full. Fill them with the MUST DO items and crowd out the noise that will otherwise fill your days.

I encourage you to take Ferriss’ approach to another level to find your micro-motives.

Why You Should Find Your Micro-Motives

For generations, only practical path to financial security and fulfilling life was for us to be the same as everyone else in our field, just better. This "standard formula" works for fifteen to twenty percent of the people. However, it leaves most of us feeling disengaged and frustrated.

For most of us, when we think about success, it's pretty narrow, and we end up thinking about things like wealth, status, power. And we sort of think that you have to choose between that and being happy – and dark horses show us that you actually don't have to choose." —Todd Rose

No matter where you are in your career, having a dark horse mindset empowers you to reliably make the right choices that fit your unique interests, abilities, and circumstances.  The approach will guide you to a life of purpose, passion, and achievement.

The first is finding your micro-motives. These traits are the clue to your best self. Below is an approach to help you find yours.

Your micro-motives are the emotional core of your individuality.

• What you desire and what you do not want — defines who you are in a unique and profoundly personal manner
• When you take actions that match up with your true motives, your journey will be compelling and satisfying
• However, if you misjudge or ignore your micro-motives, your progress will be plodding and dreary. You may abandon the road altogether.

It is essential for you to know what puts the wind in your sails. Rather than what someone else thinks will get you going. A crucial element of the dark horse mindset is knowing your micro-motives.

Play the Judgement Game

You can find fulfilment by uncovering your micro-motives. To discover them play the judgement game.

Here are the three steps in the judgement game:

1.     Become aware of the moments when you are judging someone

We all do this all the time. It is human nature to react to others, whether it is a mail carrier, police officer, massage therapist, neighbour, store clerk or someone on a magazine cover. Develop an awareness of when you are doing it, so you can consciously attend to your reaction.

As you just completed your past year review, you have people on your naughty and nice lists!

2.     Identify the feelings that occur as you judge someone

If you have a vivid reaction, you are close to one of your micro-motives. It does not matter whether it is positive or negative, celebratory, or condemnatory, the feeling needs to be strong. Remember, you are trying to contact your authentic emotional core.

The folks that ended up in the top and bottom 20 percent in your past year review ended up there because how they made you feel. Dig more deeply to understand why being with them made you feel one way or the other.

3.     Ask yourself why you are undergoing those feelings

Be honest.

You must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” —Richard Feynman, physicist

For the folks on both your positive list and negative list, focus on what you would like and what you would hate if you had their life. Keep in mind, the purpose of the judgement game is not to coldly assess the merits and deficiencies of other people. It is not about them at all. Your goal is to use your intense emotional responses to discover your hidden desires. In the judgement game, you are both the player and referee. Only you know for sure when you have found one of your micro-motives to its fullest depth.

So, how do you find fulfilment for yourself?

Uncovering your “micro-motives” are crucial to finding fulfilment. These motives are the collection of your super-specialized things that make your heart sing. Fulfilment leads to success at work, not the other way around. There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all fulfillment.

Seeking learning feedback is the most meaningful thing you can do to find purpose and fulfillment at work.

Finding your micro-motives is the clue to your best self. Your motives are the emotional core of your individuality. The dark horse mindset has four elements:

1. discover your micro-motives
2. be open to opportunities and see them
3. develop strategies for you to build your talent stack to capitalize on the openings
4. do not focus on the destination — you enjoy the journey and continue to refine the above three elements

With a dark horse mindset and using learning feedback, you will go to places you never dreamed were possible.

Concluding thoughts

So, forget resolutions and do some real self-reflection. Your past year review helps you play the judgement game. The game takes time to learn. However, it is far more reliable and valid than standardized tests of motivation. There are many career tests that employers and guidance counsellors use to evaluate the motives of employees and students each year. These tests often determine how your responses may match those of the “average professional” in each field.

However, we use an assessment that is designed to help you find your unique pattern of preferences — your micro-motives and your superpowers! We refer to it this unique combination as your behavioural DNA. We apply the most progressive advancement in the field of personality, behavioural and career assessment methodology.

It has long been believed that personality researchers and practitioners needed to further their understanding and prediction of human behaviour and career success.

Standardized assessments are simply showing superficial highlights about yourself or your expressed career interest. These tests do not predict what careers you would find true career success on the job. They ignore micro-motives. We assess the presence of different motives. For example,

• the preference to interact with other people vs. the preference to be alone
• the preference to conform vs. the preference to rebel
• the preference to use street sense vs. the preference to use evidence

Your preferences are not black or white. They are a continuum. They are circumstantial. The approach we have chosen is to make the analytics as personally relevant to you as possible – by linking it directly to you and the roles you are considering.

In the Age of Personalization, there is a new definition of success. It recognizes that individuality truly matters: Success is living a life of fulfilment and excellence.