Why New Year's Resolutions Flop and What You Should Do to Make SMART Goals
Happy 2026!
We have all made new year’s resolutions, and most of us have experienced failure in executing them to one degree or another. Most personal resolutions have to do with exercising more, losing weight, eating healthier, and spending more time with family and friends. Those are all reasonable wishes, right? Then why do most resolutions flop so spectacularly?
Please tune in this week as Wayne lists the top eight most common resolutions, explains why they most often flop, discusses (again!) SMART goals as alternatives to rather flaccid resolutions, and encourages you to put yourself first and schedule your personal, family, and exercise goals just as you would an important meeting, a doctor appointment, or any crucial event. What about you? Are you the rare exception who can set and keep your new year’s resolutions? Please share your thoughts with us at [email protected].
The first class of Contractor Business Boot Camp for 2026 starts on Feb 25th in Dallas, TX. Seats are filling up fast. So, act now! Enroll your rising high-potential leaders to this unique leadership development program where they will get an opportunity to learn how to work ON the business rather than IN the business. Invest in their future so they can continue the legacy of your successful construction business. Contact Charlotte at [email protected] to find out more.
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WAYNE RIVERS: Hi everyone. Happy New Year. This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors, where We Build Better Contractors.
This week, I want to talk about New Year's resolutions. Perfect topic, right? Before I get into that, Boot Camp 2026. It's a new year, sign your folks up, contact Charlotte. Dallas in February, we turn around, Charlotte, March 18th, only three weeks later. Salt Lake City, August 19th, and Dallas, October 21st, 2026. Get your folks signed up.
So I want to talk about New Year's resolutions this week. Statista recently shared data from its Statista Global Consumer Survey, didn't know that was a thing, which asked people about their New Year's resolutions, and these were the top eight New Year's resolutions. Exercise more, eat healthier, lose weight, save more money, spend more time with family and friends, spend less time on social media, that would be a good one, reduce stress on the job and reduce spending on living expenses. The eight most popular New Year's resolutions.
Now, all of those resolutions are doomed to fail. I talked to a guy who was in the sporting goods business, this is, gosh, 35 or 40 years ago now, and on the floor, he had all these exercise machines, stationary bikes and elliptical things and treadmills, and they were really flimsy. And he said, "Yeah, the manufacturers build them that way because most of them never get used. People make New Year's resolutions and they never use this equipment after about February 1st to February 15th, so they can afford to make them of poor quality because they know they're not going to wear out because the people aren't going to use them."
And so, New Year's resolutions don't work for lots of reasons. Dennis and I have talked about goal setting in our blogs over the years. Some of our members believe in rigid goal-setting. I certainly do, I think it's been a boon to my life. But some, not so much. One of the reasons that we don't set goals all that well, I think, is that we're too hard on ourselves. So when you look back at 2025 in your rearview mirror, I bet that you're thinking about the things that you didn't accomplish, because again, we're hard on ourselves. I wanted our volume to be 100 million, we were only 98, or I wanted our margin to come in at 2%, and we came in at 1.7%.
You think about the things that you didn't do, and that's good in a way because it motivates you to try a little harder in the future. But at the same time, we fail to celebrate the victories. Your goal was 100 million and you hit 98? You made 98% of your goal? That's pretty good. You wanted 2%, you got 1.7% at the bottom line on 100 million of volume? That's a lot of money. That's a lot of bonuses you can pay people. That's a lot of 401(k) contributions you can make. That's a lot of capital you can reinvest in the company, in new equipment, new IT, new people, et cetera, et cetera. Don't beat yourself up.
And I would say celebrate your victories, but don't wait until the end of the year, celebrate them every week. Go through them. What did your team accomplish last week? Well, we topped out a new building. Man, that's awesome. We got a new contract signed for a great project that we think is going to be a home-run for both the owner and us, it's going to be a win-win. Celebrate your victories as you experience them. There's plenty of time during the work week, during the year even, to beat yourself up over things that don't go right. Once a week at least, as we do in our weekly staff meetings, celebrate the things that you did well. Celebrate the things that the team accomplished, even the little things, they add up and they matter.
I would also say, as a part of resolutions, the one thing, what was the fifth one? I think it was spend more time with friends and family. Get that on your calendar now. Put those things on your calendar now, your family vacations, whatever. Get those on your calendar right now and make them sacred and sacrosanct. Business is busy, and if you don't carve out personal and family time now, leisure time, business will eat it up and you'll say, "Oh, we can't go on that trip, because the biggest bid in the history of our company's coming up and I just have to be there with the team." Get that stuff on your calendar right now.
Now, why don't those goals work? I want to lose weight, I want to eat better, I want to spend less time at work and more time with family, why don't those things work? Because they're not SMART goals. And again, back to me and Dennis, we've talked about SMART goals until we're blue in the face. Specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic and timely. If your goals are not those five things, they're likely to fail. So when I set a goal, then my goals are simple, and this has been my goal for the last, gosh, 25 or 30 years. I want to exercise four times each week, whether it's playing tennis, walking the dog wit my wife, going to the gym, just trying to do a whole bunch of pull-ups, which at my age is getting increasingly difficult. Four times a week minimum, I want to exercise. And so, that would be roughly 200 times a year. And I've beat that goal every single year for forever. Even in the face of illness and injury, it's not that difficult to do if you're diligent about it.
So things are specific. One of the goals is I want to lose weight. Okay, what do you want your weight to be? By when? It's got to be specific. I want to weigh 165 pounds by December 31st, 2026. That's a SMART goal. That's a SMART goal, and it orients you towards taking the actions now that you need to hit that goal. If you set that goal and you make it specific and measurable and action-oriented and all the other things, you'll hit it, and it won't take you until December 31st to get it either. So resolutions don't work, most resolutions are quickly abandoned. Goals, however, are much more compelling, especially if they're SMART goals. So I hope you're off to a fast start in 2026.
This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors, where We Build Better Contractors.
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