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It’s a big deal, setting a goal. Well, kinda. After all, if you swear off food and have a pizza all on the same day, that can be the end of it, right? If you commit to inbox zero on January first and crawl out of the office on Friday the fourth with your ten most important emails still unanswered, it’s time to quit, right? Your brain thinks so. I can guarantee it.

Your brain is a brilliant thing but it’s a bit divided. It’s got a whole complex system designed and focused on doing what feels good now, will not hurt and is super easy. Right. You got it. It wants fast food, that you’ve had before, preferably delivered. It wants to answer the one hundred unimportant emails and leave those ten really intense ones for another day. Why? Because deleting an email gives you a little hit of dopamine, a little bit of “feels great”. And the easy ones, well you know, they’re easy. And the important ones… it kinda hurts just to think about focusing on reading all that and making a BIG decision. You might get your answer wrong and that could hurt you.

Get it?

So here you are, New Year’s day… setting your goal for the year. Drop some poundage, exercise more, leave work on time, empty your inbox, get that promotion. What. Ever.

See that’s the key. It absolutely does not matter what goal you set. The next thing your brain is going to do is decide your goal is the wrong goal. Bad idea. Impossible. See, you failed already. Just quit! Why? Because having a goal is the opposite of super easy.

Your brain is way smart.

Our brains got us here, as species, by conserving energy. Always on the look out for the most efficient way of getting us over the evolutionary goal line – birth, procreate, die as old as possible -the brain is always looking for the most calories for the least amount of effort, the quickest way to the water hole, the best way to stay part of the tribe, the easiest way to do the least amount of work. It’s beautiful, except if you want to do something hard. Then, your standard issue brain is a problem.

Good thing you have an executive in your head.

What? No, the VP of marketing isn’t in there with you. It’s your executive functions, cognitive processes needed for goal attainment and other stuff. That’s the part of the brain that plans, uses your working memory and basically would like to run the show. However, it’s not that simple. Your prefrontal cortex sets up plans but if you aren’t monitoring what that other section of the brain is getting up to, your mid brain is going to stage a coup.

So – If you’re having trouble with your new year’s resolution already, nothing has gone wrong. Everything is perfectly normal and your mid-brain is functioning A-OK.

OK – sure but what about that goal?

1. Recognize it’s normal for your mid-brain to bail on a goal.
2. Refuse to allow it to talk you into giving up.
3. Monitor the thoughts you are having about your goal – are these helping you?
4. Decide you are going to try again, every day if needed, until you acheive your goal.

Step 2, that’s the key right? But it’s not immediately apparent how to do it. Next Monday… how to get around your mid brain and jazz yourself up for keeping going.

See, you might make February with that goal after all.

Welcome to another year of working. If that thought didn’t make you leap out of your chair in delight, you’re not alone. For knowledge workers and pretty much everyone else too, overwhelm, constant distraction, workload and navigating around coworkers seems to suck the joy right out of our work.

What is a poor IT dude to do? We can google time management, find a productivity system, look for an internet guru – hello, nice to meet you – or just throw the covers over our heads and listen to that inner voice that tells us to forget it, we’ve done it all before and it – never – works.

That, my friends, is past- based thinking and it was helpful for cavemen but it’s not serving you now.

Past failures don’t mean you’ll fail tomorrow – unless you’re telling yourself they do. Our brains are geared to seek out stuff…like berries, water, predators, tools, solutions and confirmation. So if you’re telling yourself you’ll probably fail at your new year’s resolution, your magnificent brain is going to get busy confirming that awesome understanding of the world.

Too bad, because that’s faulty logic you got there. If we could only do what we’ve done before, none of us would ever even have a job. We wouldn’t find housing, we wouldn’t learn to drive or improve ourselves. We wouldn’t invent things, like cars, geothermal systems or social media. But we do. Humans do that marvelous magic all the time.

Humans find ways to change the world and themselves all the time. Good thing you’re human, huh? Why aren’t you telling yourself that? Tell yourself you’re human. You fail forward. It’s the human condition and it’s the most awe-inspiring thing ever.

Write that New Year’s Resolution

Don’t be wimpy about it. Don’t play it safe. Safe from what? Failure? Who cares? Not being willing to try is exactly the same as failing but it’s way less likely to succeed.

Did I lose you there? Failure is the fastest way forward. You learn what doesn’t work. The critical piece is to be willing to fail, not quit, fail – again and again. Here’s something else cool to know: no matter what your goal is, it will help you with work. Just trust me on that one for now. What your goal is? Not so important. What’s important, is to have one. Be bold.

Drop that past based thinking and start over. Start today. Ask yourself,what is the one thing that would be fantabulously magical to have done this year? Let your mighty brain work on a solution to THAT.

Here’s another suggestion: ask your brain what you actually do like about your current work. How can you do more of that this year?

But what about February? Whose gonna love you then?

I’m not going to give you a bunch of tactics for managing work or achieving goals.

There are thousands of people out there who can help you with tactics and, ok, maybe I’ll give you some links to my favorites, but where are they when your motivation flags and you fall back into your old, dull, stressful and frustrating routine? I’ll tell you where… they’re dreaming up new tactics.

When the novelty of your resolution starts to wane, and your old patterns come up, and they will, how are you going to break away? What you need is to understand why you’re back where you started and how to break the cycle. The answer isn’t not setting goals. The solution isn’t another system. The key is to understand that this is normal, why it’s normal, and why it’s not permanent. The key is to change the way you’re thinking.

You’ve heard that before, right? Here’s the news – I know how. Someone taught me and I can teach you. I’m going to spend a year of Mondays doing it… right here… on line… for free.

You’re welcome.

See The 2 Minute Video Here

What can you accomplish by listing out how you’re thinking, feeling, and acting?   The answer is a lot.  Check out my 2-minute video.