Resolutions vs Goals

Every year between Christmas and New Year's, (usually not till New Year's Eve for us procrastinators) most folks are thinking about the resolutions they plan to make. There are the typical... to lose weight, find a job, or a better one if you're fortunate to still be working. I used to make about the same ones every year and hope that the new year would see me keeping those resolutions. It never fails...the resolutions fall by the wayside before two months of the new year are gone. There's just something about making resolutions to yourself that don't always work out.

My Oxford Word Finder defines resolution as "a thing resolved on; an intention".  In place of resolution we could use words such as: commitment, pledge, promise, word of honor, oath, vow, undertaking, obligation, intention.  Every one of them evokes determination to achieve some kind of result. Give me a few weeks and I'll have forgotten what the resolutions were, never mind my failure to keep them. The next step is guilt setting in. You know what they say about good intentions...

So I got to thinking there had to be a better way. I thought about setting goals. After all, we don't set resolutions as writers...we set goals. Is there a difference? I believe there is.  Going back to my trusty Word Finder, a goal is described as: "the object of a person's ambition or effort; a destination; an aim. Other words we could use might be: object, aim, purpose, end, objective, target, ambition, ideal, aspiration.

Comparing the two, I find I like setting goals better. Resolutions sound like gavel-pounding promises that will come back to bite you if you fail to keep them. There's just something about goals that doesn't seem so harsh, or hard to keep. If you fail them, it's more like "I'll have to try harder next time," and there's no real 'guilt' attached.

Last year was the first time I tried goal setting, and although I only set one I was pleased to have achieved it. This year I'm doing it again and set a couple more. I expect one goal will be much easier to reach than the second but they're still goals.

In conclusion...I resolve, to the best of my ability, to achieve the goals I have set.