This was the first year of my life where the New Year was not a big deal to me in the sense that I was not able to set aside a considerable amount of time to reflect upon the previous year and set goals for the new year because I was and still am too focused on the goals I have set from the previous year to set new ones or reflect on my accomplishments just yet.

First, I thought about why this was: Why wasn’t I spending the time to reflect and plan? Answer: I’m too busy with my current startup to spare time for a vacation.  If it isn’t adding value to my start up, I don’t have time for it.  I haven’t taken a vacation in 2014 yet and I don’t plan on taking one until the startup reaches a better place.

Then I realized what this means is that the “new years resolution” culture is largely due to the holiday season that leads up to the new years holiday: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years give you lots of free time in a short 4-5 week period during which you can pause your life and reflect and meditate and think.

Then I realized I do this every two weeks at least: I refocus my priorities, I evaluate them against my long term goals, and I make adjustments to my plans.  I constantly do this on a small scale daily but on a full scale bi-monthly.  This allows me to not get distracted and stay focused on my goals.

Therefore I concluded that the process of reflecting on what you did since your last reflection session and setting a plan of action for yourself should be on your personal timeline rather than on a timeline that isn’t yours.  Time moves without you, the calendar will tick whether you’ve made progress on your goals or not, whether you’ve remembered them or forgotten them, so don’t base your life on it because it isn’t related to you.  You want to reflect on your goals based on a function of your personal memory timeline: If I forget things after 3 weeks then I should refresh my memory of my goals every 3 weeks or less.

I think this is the reason why people’s new years resolutions don’t last: Because too many people ascribe to the culture of reflecting based on a calendar external to their personal life calendar.  Focus on yourself: How often do you need to be reminded? How often should you re-focus and reflect on your life?  Do it on your own timeline and you’ll see more success.

The person who reads their new years resolutions every day or every week for an entire year has a much higher chance of succeeding at meeting them than someone who never reads it again after making them.

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