The First Barrier – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

How long do New Year’s goals really last?

Photo by Gene Devine on Unsplash

Believe it or not, January 19 is known as "Quitters Day," the day when, however ambitious or realistic the goals we set at the start of the year, we’re most likely to drop them. All the drive, joy and care that went into a day of deep reflection on our current abilities and our vision of the future can vanish in barely two weeks. Why?

For one, there’s a big reflection we almost never make, and it’s the reason I enjoy writing this blog: our purpose. That inspiring sentence that captures our essence and that we can keep coming back to when we calibrate our goals. I see it constantly in companies and in personal life: we set targets, goals and aspirations without looking back (in a company’s case) at the vision. Inspiring visions hang on the wall, "By 2030, to be the leader in…", and a basic question would be, "How much does what we’re setting out to do in 2022 move us toward that vision?" The answer is usually a simple yes or no.

When we calibrate against purpose, the answers tend to be even clearer. Purpose rests on a system of values, so living it out pushes us to behave ethically. Like vision, mission and values, purpose carries enormous weight when we want to judge how essential a goal really is. That’s why every time we set goals we need a filter at hand to "sift," so to speak, any decision before we invest resources in it, especially time.

A personal goal of losing weight and a business goal of winning a new market with a product share one thing: a purpose. Before January ends, it’s perfectly normal for a person or a company to feel the New Year hangover, which usually includes goals we missed last year, debts we need to figure out how to pay and countless issues that start popping up like popcorn (poporopos, as we say back home). Right in that early stretch the first barriers, waves and stumbles appear, and the old rule "better the devil you know" kicks in. In other words, we fall back into doing what we’ve always done, whether it works or not, on autopilot.

That’s a clear loss of focus, the result of what FranklinCovey aptly calls "the whirlwind." Another big issue is launching goals without the resources they need. A strategic plan or a set of New Year’s resolutions will always need enough resources to carry it out (people, money, time, emotional energy and so on). Sadly, we want to lose weight or win a new market with no way to reduce the interference that stops us, even though we know performance equals potential minus interference (as Tim Gallwey put it so well). These noisy barriers only waste resources and slow us down significantly, so it’s no surprise that two or three weeks into the year our good intentions get shelved.

Is reaching a goal easy? Not even close. Does it take a lot of values? Of course. To name a few: wisdom, humility, courage, passion and willpower. Can someone else reach a goal for me? No. There will always be something we have to do ourselves (this is where leadership really shows). Will I face many obstacles? Of course. Will I have the resources to achieve what I long for? If it’s in line with my purpose, yes. That’s why I love Viktor Frankl’s line: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response."

Happy Sunday, have a great week, and let’s restart at full speed everything we may have unconsciously set aside on the 19th 🙂

"If you know what you want, why are you waiting?" Simon Harrys

All the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. This week’s VELA (what I was Watching, Listening to, Reading and Learning):

• Watching: The Grand Tour. I was a Top Gear fan and I’m a big admirer of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. It’s a great series I just discovered and I’m enjoying it enormously.
• Listening to: Maps of Meaning. Based on Jordan Peterson’s book, a series of episodes on his podcast where he walks through the book bit by bit.
• Reading: Letters from a Stoic (Letters to Lucilius). Closing out January with this great book. I hope life brings me more books of this caliber. There’s a lot from my past I’d like to make up for, and one thing is going back to my literature and philosophy courses and paying them 1% more attention.
• Learning: Buffettology. Also closing out the month with this book, as part of my ongoing education in the wonderful world of investing.

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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