The problem is, what do you choose? Nobody’s perfect, and even nearly perfect people probably have more than just one flaw. I’ll be the first to admit it — I have quirks that need to change, both personally and professionally. But which one to pick? Traditional thinking calls for a single, big New Year’s Resolution. But why not make a longer list of smaller goals to aim for during the course of the year?
“Mini-Goals”
I can already hear the groans. “Multiple resolutions???” Don’t think about them as “resolutions,” think “mini-goals” instead. Years ago, I was turned on to something called the 101 in 1001. The idea is to set 101 goals that I would accomplish in 1001 days. Yes, that is right — you give yourself more than a year.
These 101 goals can be as simple as making a new friend or business contact once a month for those 1001 days. They can also be long term. A couple of personal favorites: losing a few pounds, adding a few more romantic evenings and learning a new language. The possibilities are endless with your personal goals.
These goals don’t have to be limited to your personal life, either. Think of your professional life as well. Maybe you want to get acquainted with, or master, a new console, or land a set number of new gigs. You might even want to venture into sound production — learn how a sound board works, or learn more about the crazy types of cables they use. Or maybe make a point of visiting a relative while out on tour.
A Motivational Tool
Your list of 101 things to work on doesn’t have to be limited to self-improvement, either. You can include bucket-list items, too. Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon, or learned how to make your own beer?
Think of the 101 in 1001 list as a motivational tool. We have a tendency to get stuck in our ways — working our jobs, doing the same thing day after day, month after month, year after year. We can easily forget to take in life and do those things that we’ve always wanted to do but never found the time.
You may think that making a list of 101 goals to be done over 1001 days may seem to be seem to be impossibly ambitious, so here’s my suggestion: if you’d rather just stick to a single New Year’s resolution, resolve to make the list. You can even put the list as the #1 goal to achieve, and once you’ve completed it, you can cross it off. Congratulations! Only 100 more goals to go. And you have more than a year to get everything done — closer to three years, in fact!
You might think that I just heard about this cool goal-setting trick, and that I’m just casually recommending it without actually having tried it myself. But that’s not the case. I tried this several years ago and, looking back on it now, I ended up doing a majority of things on the list. It makes me feel good that I was able to accomplish some weird things that I wanted to get done in my life. Honestly, who doesn’t feel better after paying off a car and not having a car payment each month?
So once you reach 1001 days, then what? First, you can look back and see your progress. Chances are, you will have fallen short and not achieved a good number of goals you set for yourself. But there’s also a good chance that you achieved many, if not most of the 101 items you wrote down. Because any one of them could have been a single New Year’s resolution, you might have successfully achieved a whole life span of New Year’s resolutions within a 1001-day time frame.
I mentioned the idea of including the creation of the list itself as one of the 101 goals you could set for yourself. Here are two more: to review the list on a regular basis — at least once a month, say — and to add a new goal to the list every time you’re able to cross something off.
That way, if you’re like me — notorious for giving up on New Year’s resolutions — you’ll always have plenty of fresh, new goals to shoot for. And instead of making — and once again breaking — a single New Year’s Resolution, you can ring in each New Year by checking the list to see how you’re doing with all the goals you already have.
