MBA855 Q&A Weekends: Do you make New Year Resolutions? Why or Why Not?

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Hey O.

Welcome to the $100 MBA show and today's a Q and A Weekend's episode where we answer your question right here on the show. As always, I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, the complete business training and community online. And before we get into today's Q and A weekend's question, I want to let you know that tomorrow is a very important and special episode. Make sure you hit subscribe and tune in tomorrow. There's a really big announcement that we're going to be making. I want to share with you some things we've been working on as well as some new things we're going to be doing with the show. Don't worry, we're not going anywhere, but I want to make sure you tune in because it's very important. All right, Today's Q and A weekend's question is do you set New Year's resolutions? Why or why not? This question was actually asked by Nicole Baldinho, my business partner and partner in life. This is a question she asked and a discussion we had a few months ago. And given the fact it's New Year's Day, I thought it would be an appropriate question to answer on today's episode. I mean, a lot of people set New Year's resolutions. I'm gonna tell you my take on it, what I do, how do I do it, and the rationale behind it. I do want to say that if you disagree with what I have to say in today's episode, that's fine. I am happy to disagree with people. I think disagreement is great because it allows us to see different perspectives. It doesn't mean I'm hating on you or you're doing something wrong. I'm just gonna be sharing with you what worked for me and why I think it works for me. So we got a lot to cover in today's Q and A episodes. New Year's resolutions. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. By definition, a resolution means a firm decision. So when people make these firm decisions on New Year's, it means that they've decided this is something that they want, something that they want to change in their life. And I'm all for that. I think decisions are very important. They empower you. Being indecisive is one of the worst things you can be. So making a decision about something, whether it's in your business, your life, your health, whatever it is, that's a good thing. But I'm here to say that's not enough. Just deciding is not enough for you to actually make it happen. I can decide I want to be an Olympic swimmer, but if I don't train, if I don't eat right, if I don't jump in the pool, then it's not going to happen. Simple as that. Doesn't matter how strongly or how decisively I decide. This is why I think New Year's resolutions, as they are right now or as we know them, are not such a great idea. And let me give you the reasons why I think they're not a good idea. Number one, again, deciding is not enough. You have to have a plan of action. You need to know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. You need to break it down into micro goals. What are you going to do today for that goal you're trying to complete by the end of the year? You got to reverse engineer it. You got to break it down into micro steps. A decision is not a plan. It's not an action plan. A decision is just the first step. And it's important because it really defines your values. And by saying yes to something, you're saying no to something else. If you're saying yes to better health, that means you're saying no to junk food. If you're saying yes to a new business, that means you're gonna have to let go of something else that you're spending your time with. That's a good place to start. But it's not everything you need to make it happen. Number two, we often make New Year's resolutions on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day or the day after New Year's or whatever. And it's sort of something that we spend maybe a few minutes thinking about. I think this year I want to lose 10 pounds. I think this year I want to change this in my business. I think this year I want to have a deeper relationship with somebody. It's kind of like at a whim. We don't really give it much time. We never really analyze these things. Real goals that you actually set out to take on and to accomplish. You actually sit down and decide, is this really something I want to work on? Do these goals align with my values? Is this really what I want? Is this really what's going to fulfill me? Or am I looking for something else? How does this goal affect the rest of my life? This is more than a five minute decision. This could take you a few hours or a full day or a couple of days, and that's okay. This is important. Spending five, six, eight hours on something a day on something is worth it because you're planning out what you're going to do for the rest of the 365 days. So if you don't want those 365 days to be a waste, it's a good investment. So I mentioned having a plan as well as, you know, just at a whim, making these decisions. But also when you don't have a plan where you actually write down, okay, this is what I have to do to get to this goal. I need to do X amount. Let's say, for example, you have a goal like, I love to travel to South America. Most people just stop there. Well, how are you going to get there? How much is it going to cost? How much time you need to take off? Go and budget yourself. Maybe you need $10,000 to do this. Going to spend a couple months in South America. How much time can you take off? Okay, a couple of months is not possible. How about five weeks? Okay, that's possible. All right, five weeks. Let's do it. How much is it going to cost to do five weeks? Where am I going to go? What's my itinerary? Do I need to brush up on my Spanish or Portuguese? What are you going to do? You have to plan. You have to actually figure out, how is this actually going to happen? How much money are you going to save every month? Where's that money going to come from? Are you going to cut back on coffees? Are you going to cut back on whatever you Spend on. Are you going to pick up an extra job? Are you going to, you know, increase sales in your business? What's happening here? How are you going to make this happen? Now, once you have that plan, right, and say, for example, you go through the year, but you never actually get to South America, you don't actually fulfill that goal, that's when the plan is really useful. Because before you set your next resolution, you need to ask yourself, what happened to last year's resolution? What happened to last year's goals? So if you look back at last year's goals and say, I was setting out to go to South America for five weeks, that didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? Let me take a look at that plan. And you go through the plan and say, okay, I did that. I did that. I got stuck there. Why did you get stuck there? Why did it not actually happen? Because what stopped you there is going to stop you in the future if you don't actually figure it out, if you actually don't learn how to get over that hurdle. Because in a lot of ways, achieving any goal is the same pattern. It's the same sort of muscles you're using, whether it's willpower or drive or grit or whatever it is. Where were you lacking? Where did you fall short so it doesn't happen again? But if you have no plan of action, you have no idea why you failed. You just chalk it up to laziness. You just chalk it up to something else, or you couldn't afford it or something, but why couldn't you avoid it? What happened? There's people out there that go to South America. You're not the only person that wants to go there. And this is something I really learned over the course of my life. Meeting different people, meeting some really successful people in the world, in business, in life in general, reading a lot of their stories, whether they're in books or hearing them on podcasts. And what I learned from all these stories, that they don't wish for anything. They plan for it. They have a strategy, whatever they're looking for. And they're not superhuman. They just use the same practices or principles that we use in smaller tasks with larger ones or life goals. Most of us have taken a road trip in our life, whether the road trip was for a few hours or for a few days. The point is, we pulled it off, right? Now, when you go on a road trip, you don't just think on a whim, unless you're in college or something. You just say, hey, I want to go to Florida. You drive from, I don't know, all the way from Houston, Texas to Florida, to Orlando, Florida. You don't just get in your car the moment you decide and do it. No, of course not. You plan it out, you figure it out. How many days do I need to do this? How much money is it going to cost? Is my car, you know, ready to do this trip? Do I need to, you know, do an oil change? What about snacks? I got to have snacks on my road trip, right? We do all this planning, right? Where am I going to stop? So we know how to do this. We just got to do it in the bigger things in our life that really make a difference. So to answer the question directly, no, I do not make New Year's resolutions. Why? Because I like to set solid goals. And I usually like to do this a little bit before New Year's, like in November of the year before it, because it allows me to gear up for the new year. So before the new year starts, I'm hitting the ground running. I have everything I need. I've cleared my calendar to make sure I have enough time for the new year to fulfill what I have to fulfill. I may even started on some of the stuff that I'm working towards that gives me momentum. So when the new year starts, I'm not trying to push this boulder up the hill. I'm already, you know, kind of moving. So personally, I like to do two major business goals and one personal goal. Now you may think, well, only three goals. Well, they're pretty big and big. I mean, it could be something like a number of users I'd like on the software. For you, it might be different. Might be revenue numbers, might be a search engine ranking. And for personal goals, I like to keep it simple. One personal goal every year. Last year it was to read more books. To read at least one book every two weeks. I was able to accomplish that. I'm so happy I did that. This year it's something different. But the point here is you got to keep it simple so you actually get it done. Having five or six personal goals really makes it overwhelming. Now I break down these goals, whether they're business or personal, by each quarter. So every three months I have a breakdown of what I have to accomplish by the end of those three months. So I know exactly what I have to finish by the end of March 2017. And it's actually on a big A3 size paper on my wall and it's a list of things I have to accomplish. See, we could see three months ahead. That's not too far out. And you can kind of visually mentally think, okay, there are three months and a quarter. I gotta finish at least a third of these things by the end of the month. And you can start crossing things out as you're going along. And you create these visual pieces of paper. I like using paper right by my desk for every quarter until you reach the end of the year where you hit that target. This allows you to keep your eye on the prize, allows you to keep you focused on what you have to do. Right now you have that long term goal. It's a year. I know you're going to get there. But first you got to start with what I call the first down. And I often use this analogy. And I think the best business people think in this way. And this is a reference to American football. In American football, when they get into the huddle before they start a play, the quarterback is often saying the same thing to everybody. They're saying, let's just get the first down. And the first down is just 10 yards ahead of where they are right now. The length of the field is 100 yards. But they're just focusing on getting the first down getting closer down the field. They don't get in the huddle and say, all right, let's score a touchdown. Let's, let's just go through the whole field in one shot. In fact, that play in football is called the Hail Mary play. It's a prayer, right? It's just very hard for it to happen in one shot. You're gonna be able to accomplish your goal. So just focus on getting the first down every quarter. Get a little closer, Get a little closer. And finally on the fourth quarter, you're, you know, you're, you're kind of getting close and you really see it. You've seen all the other previous 3/4 work come into action, come into play as you're getting closer to the goal.

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Guys, to wrap up today's Q and A weekends episode, focus on getting some solid goals and a plan of action instead of just a resolution. Now, I know it's the first and it's not, you know, a couple months before the year where I recommend you should set your goals. But you could still do that today or you could do it tomorrow, but you could set the time and say, hey, the next five, six hours, I'm going to really define what my values are, what my goals are this year, how I'm going to accomplish these goals, break them down into quarters and micro goals in each quarter. You're going to feel empowered, you're going to feel great. Because now you're not overwhelmed. You feel like I know exactly what I have to do today to accomplish what I want to do by the end of the year. And it's not just a hope or a decision. It's a plan of action. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA Show. Make sure you hit subscribe to get all our episodes automatically. That's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this again. Please do not forget to tune in to tomorrow's episode. It's a very important and special episode. I'll be sharing with you some things that were going on in our business, some changes, some adjustments, some improvements that we're doing, as well as some changes that we're going to be doing to the show. This is going to be a very personal episode to me and this episode is going to have a very personal feel. I'll be sharing with you some personal feelings about what's going on with our world and business and some hard decisions we had to make. Can't wait for that. I'll see you tomorrow.

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