Every year, many people reflect on their New Year resolution’s, deciding if they will set new, change, or abandon goals or habits. Businesses often look at the performance indicators of previous years and decide what needs to be adjusted in their overall strategy, and what goals they wish to pursue in the financial year.

At the end of January, most of these goals become shattered dreams. People give up on dieting, going to the gym, or learning that new skill.

Businesses might be more prone to continue, especially if they had announced their plans to shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers or the public in general. However, they might take it easy in the beginning. „We have time till the end of the year”, they might think, not adding more pressure than needed on themselves.

And as it usually happens, they start to rush to meet their goals when the end of the year is approaching until the point there is no more time and they finally postpone it to the next year. The cycle is repeated, and over time, little has been achieved. Some managers may put pressure to accomplish these, especially if part of their pay is bonus-based.

Some people, of course, work on their goals and manage to meet them unless some unfortunate events occur or simply when their targets are so unrealistic that they are forced to drop them. Besides, progress is not a straight line and setbacks are expected to happen along the way. The most important is to get back on track as soon as possible, and learn how to be flexible.

Personally, I like working and keeping my routine. I usually adjust it when it is needed, but I try to be consistent and stick to it so that I don’t lose track from my main goals. For example, every morning I study for an hour approximately. When my expected exam date approaches (I can choose when to sit the exam, but I set myself a deadline), I put on hold other activities that are not that urgent or need to be finished those days and I focus more hours on the exam. It doesn’t mean I have to stick to it one-hundred percent of the time. Life gets sometimes on the way and I need to change plans. Of course, this is how it works for me and each one of us needs to do what’s best for them. However, it allows me to structure my routine in a way that helps me accomplish my goals. Even when setbacks occur, I can go back to it quickly, especially if I succeeded in making it a habit.

In the end, it is a matter of discipline and patience. The first one allows you to build the habit and keep it consistent over time, whereas the second allows you to keep up when results take their time to arrive. If not, the so feared procrastrination will still be the norm and you’ll be stuck, until the end of the year is near again and you try to accomplish everything in a short time, giving up again and postpone your New Year resolution to the next year.