Rewriting Your Resolutions
Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash
In January, I set a New Years Resolution to take my writing more seriously. As part of that resolution, I set a goal to Write for at least 30 minutes every day and the words I am writing right now are because of that promise to myself.
When I first set the goal, I set out to write for 30 minutes every day but then after the first weekend realized it was unrealistic. Rather than scrapping the goal altogether, I adjusted and changed it to 30 minutes every weekday. This gave me a break from the habit on the weekend but allowed me to remain consistent and ultimately reaching my goal of taking my writing more seriously.
Three months in I now realize that I've been taking the easy way out with this goal, as I've focused almost all my writing energy on Sunday Starters. As of this moment I have written two hundred and sixty-six of them, but this is the first time in five years that I have been this far ahead. The one for this weekend is already scheduled to be posted and the ones for the next 8 weeks are already written including the social media posts that go with them. It is for that reason that I am now realizing that I need to, once again, adjust my goal.
Writing every day is good for me, but I tend to default to Sunday Starters because they are easier. Most of the time, like right now, I just write down my thoughts then do a little research to include some stats and solid information to back up those thoughts. Then I proofread and post. It's good. It's fun. It's easy. But it's not the only thing I should be doing.
From this moment forward (which is March 12, 2026 at 1:49PM EST), I am going to not only commit to writing 30 minutes every weekday, but I'm going to specify what I am going to work on: one day will be for Sunday Starters, one will be for professional development articles, and the other for my next book. The last days will be dealer's choice.
I'm telling you all this because we rarely see the behind the scenes of goalsetting, which involves a lot of crossing out, rewriting, and trying again. BJ Fogg refers to them as Habit Recipes and the idea that good recipes often take many revisions to get them right: "If you're not doing a habit, it's not because you're broken. It's because the habit recipe isn't working. So, you revise the recipe."
So yes, this is me, rewriting the recipe again. Not because I made some disastrous mistake, but because I am paying attention and learning. The people who do the biggest things are not the ones who follow the rules perfectly but the ones who keep revising the rules until they match the life they are building.
