With every new year we see the “new year, new me” New Year’s resolutions. Statistically, 70% of these resolutions are broken by the 17th of January. This is partially due to overreaching; people make promises and set goals that far supersede anything they’ve every accomplished before. Most of the failed goals have to do with a lack of proper planning. Many any have to do with a lack of accountability. Most have to do with a combination of all three, plus lack of faith and drive.
Some people start new diets on January 1st even though they downed 12 donuts and a milkshake on December 31st. Others promise never to lie again, even though they finished the year without confessing the lies they already told. Others resolve to make a million dollars even though they’ve never had a six figure year. How about the guy who says this is the year he’ll have a six pack for abs even though he drinks a six pack of beer every weekend and chases that with a six pack of sodas throughout the week. These are the same guys that buy a gym membership and go way too hard the first week, only to experience burnout and quit by the second week. How about the people who say they will write a book this year even though they read zero books the previous year?
These are the people who overreach. They make impulsive New Year’s resolutions that involve goals and promises they’ve never kept before. They aim at targets they’ve never hit before, and without practice or preparation, they pull the trigger and hope for the bull’s eye. The truth is that if you have never read a book, you may not be writing a book any time soon; if you haven’t exercised in 10 years, you may not keep up with the regimen that leads to six pack abs; if you haven’t confessed your lies, you may find it hard to tell the truth; etc.
So how do we stay on course and finish this new year strong? How do we write New Year’s resolutions that stick, and that lead to small, medium and large wins that add value and significance to our lives? It’s all in the preparation. It’s all in being realistic. It’s all in telling yourself the truth rather than dressing yourself in lies to please others. Let’s explore how to prepare.
How about this year, when you set any goal, you set yourself up for wins? You do this by writing down your goals on a Do, Doing, and Done list. This list is by far the BEST took I’ve used whenever I get busy. And it is so simple that you can set it up on a piece of paper in your calendar, or as a highlight color on your digital calendar, and as I use it, as three different columns on a bulletin board. This could be a cork board, or a dry erase board, etc. It could be a section of your large office board. Whatever it is, it has to be a section that is dedicated to this task and nothing else. Here is how to set up your bulleting board to win.
If you are doing what I do (a large corkboard), you separate your corkboard into three separate columns. Label each column on the top. The first is labeled “DO”, the second is labeled “DOING” and the third is labeled “DONE.”
Once you’ve set your Do, Doing, Done board, you are ready to start setting your goals. May I suggest that before you put anything on this board, you make sure the goal is worthy of making it to your board. Only goals that are not self-serving and selfish, but those that provide value and blessings to others should make it onto your board. Make sure they serve a higher purpose than you, rather than being all about you. Before they make it on here, ask yourself, “Does this goal serve others, or does it only serve me?”
Your Do, Doing, Done board is not a dream board for you to put the bigger house, the luxury car and the expensive bag and watch on. This is not the place for you to throw up a picture of the yacht you wish to own. This isn’t even a place for you to put up pics of weddings and wedding cakes if you are praying for a husband or a wife. If you want to prepare a dream board then do it, but don’t cross the dreaming into the doing. This board is for action points, not for self serving dreams.
What should your Do, Doing, Done board have on it? Let’s first look at the Do column because that is where it all begins. If you do not curate this column correctly, your board will not lead you to success.
Your Do column is for actions that will make you valuable in other people’s lives. How do you determine if these goals fulfil this requirement? Check the motives behind them. Do you sense God is the architect of your dream or are you putting things together that do not bring glory to God? If you can honestly say that God is in the beginning of your plans, then this should definitely make it onto your board.
Challenge your goals and your action plans to make sure the why behind the what brings glory to The Creator. What are your intentions? What is causing you to go after this goal? What is causing you to take these actions? Make sure your motives are right.
Remember, God is in the beginning of all good things. Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 give us this truth. “In the beginning God” and “‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Keep God in the beginning of all that you do!
Are you adding a To Do item on this board that you are willing to endure the process for, or are you only putting To Do items on this board that have a promise you are attracted to but are not willing to work, sweat and bleed for? Don’t put items on here that require you do to tasks and take actions that are more difficult than your why.
Don’t just want the goal. Welcome the work. Welcome the struggle. Welcome the journey. Welcome the experiences. Welcome the ups and the downs. Welcome the process. Welcome the haters. Welcome attacks from those that want you to fail. Welcome the negativity. Welcome it all, because if your why is more important to you than your comfort in front of adversity, there will be no obstacle you can’t conquer, no mountain you can’t climb and no hater you can’t love on.
Do not put anything on this board that you are not committed to complete past the first sign of trouble. Trouble will come, but blessings are usually waiting for you a couple of steps past the trouble. Believe that the blessing past the adversity is worth the pain and you will keep on going.
Now that I’ve done a little preaching (lol), let’s move past the Do column and move into the Doing column.
The Doing column is the one where we run into the obstacles, the roadblocks, the struggles, the haters, the falls, the mountains to climb and the roaring rivers to cross. This is the column that breaks many people when they are trying to follow through on their goals. You may thing that the only people who struggle in this column are the people who don’t have a clearly defined why attached to the task. NOT SO! We will all struggle with at least one task if not all tasks when they enter this column. So how to we stay on track?
I learned a long time ago that the easiest way to get overwhelmed and quit is to fill up my Doing column with too many tasks before they move onto the Done column. Don’t bite more than you can chew. This will make you choke in the process. Do not take on more than you can handle.
The Doing column is where champions are made, and imposters are exposed. This is the column that will make you or break you. When you are in this column, you discover problems you never knew existed. If you have too many items in this column at once, you will burn out (wrote a blog about this one). Keep this column clean and manageable. Complete actions and move them on to the Done column before you move too many others from the Do column. This column should never be the busiest on your board. This one should have the least number of sticky notes on it.
This Doing column is also where you will discover who your war ready allies are, and who your smiling enemies are. This is where you will see some of the people you called friends turn their back on you and some strangers step into their place. This is where real friends will endure the struggle with you and help you carry your cross while others will turn their back on you and deny they ever knew you. This is a painful reality in business, in ministry, in family, in the marketplace, in church and at home. If you hold onto a worthy why, you will be able to deal with the pain of being betrayed by fake friends because you’ll know it’s a necessary purge of dead weight. God will remove the Judas types from your circle of friends in this column.
Finally, we move onto the Done column. This is the celebration column. This is the column where we get to pull out the champagne and do a happy dance. The goal of your board is to fill up this column with as many sticky notes as possible. This way the end of each month is a happy time. Take these down and put them into a notebook, and write a little note about the feeling you have in your heart thanks to the wins in the past month.
You want to talk about renewing your motivation and inspiring you to keep going? Imagine if at the end of every year, you pull out that year’s notebook and read through all your accomplishments for that year. Imagine reading through this notebook and celebrating all your wins on December 31st. This is the best way to prepare your mind, your soul and your heart to start the next year with the right mindset. This is how winners are born!
So, now that you know how to prepare this board, will you do it? I have learned something incredible. It’s a real statistic. The reason why motivation doesn’t work is because people experience a temporary state of euphoria, but less than 2% of the people who hear the info put it into practice, and only about 1% will follow through and not quit.
Ready to have your mind blown? The world’s richest 1% have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people. I would say that most of the people in that 1% are those who take action and stay the course. That 1% is composed of people who heard information, felt motivated, got inspired, prepared a plan of action complete with tasks to do (the Do column), put it into action & kept going (the Doing column), and got to celebrate the wins (the Done column). What do you think?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
George L. Rosario is a Brooklyn NY born & raised businessman & entrepreneur turned consultant. He started GC Rosario Group with his lovely wife Claudia. With over 30 years of service to the marketplace in NYC, George has relocated and been graciously adopted by the business community of South Florida. He now travels the country helping businesses and organizations thrive in today’s noisy environment. The post-Covid era forced many to close their doors, but also opened new doors of opportunity, growth and prosperity for innovative thinkers. George & Claudia Rosario help companies, businesses, organizations and teams develop the necessary skillset and plan of action to not just survive, but thrive in this new world. GC Rosario Group helps both secular and Christian based institutions meet their goals.
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