WHEN YOUR RESOLUTION FAILS, YOU AREN’T
It’s mid-January. Your resolution lasted exactly ten days. Before you beat yourself up, read this.
Right about now, you may be looking back at your year, thinking about the resolutions you made for 2025. The promises you declared before the clock struck twelve at the end of 2024. The ideas you had about who you would be, what you would do, and what you would have last year.
Now, as you reflect, and get ready for 2026, you may feel the familiar rise of disappointment that so often accompanies the past’s unrealized resolutions.
It can get ugly: Your self-talk may taunt you about how you failed. You might feel upset that you came oh-so-close, but missed the mark. Your frustration could play out in the form of giving up on having any goals for the future.
No matter the phrasing, the feeling remains the same: a sense of falling short, embarrassment about unmet expectations, loss of enthusiasm for next year, and a jaded outlook at personal power.
The trap of resolutions is that they set you up to lose before you even begin.
Here’s the problem: A resolution is a binary structure. You either do it or you don’t. Either you were consistent or you were not. Anything less than full compliance feels like failure.
With resolutions, there is little place for discovery. There’s no room for real human behavior…for the way a real body or mind works. A resolution so often leads down one narrow path. And if you step off it, the entire year feels blown.
This is why I call resolutions a losing game.
But here is the truth you were never told: The resolution was never the real story. It was only a clue. A hint about bigger, more important things.
WHAT YOU REALLY WANTED WAS TRANSFORMATION
Resolutions tend to be topical. Transformations are holistic.
A resolution is often behavioral. A transformation is always evolutional.
Your urge to make a resolution is a normal response to a deep desire to grow. For the history of humankind, there is something inside each of us that wants to evolve.
Any resolution you’ve made has been a surface expression of your greater desire. In that way, it’s never been random. It’s been a signal of a deeper movement stirring within you. It’s a fragment of a larger transformation you desire.
You want transformation. A single resolution can’t do it justice.
AN EXAMPLE: THE SAVE TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS RESOLUTION
This resolution seems simple. Save money. Hit a number. Do the task.
Like most resolutions, this one is a win/lose game. And yet, the opportunity for transformation beneath it is far greater.
If you say you want to save ten thousand dollars, what transformation are you seeking?
Maybe you want to acquire money so you can use it to make more money, imagining it as the first brick in the structure of your financial wealth. Maybe you have had enough financial stress for one lifetime, and you’re trying to prove to yourself that chapter is closing. Or maybe it reflects a desire to have a downpayment on a home.
It may have nothing to do with the number at all.
Even if you did not save the ten thousand dollars, you can still give yourself credit for transformation if you know what you desire.
If you set up a retirement plan, or learned how to invest in something new, you are on your way to financial wealth. If you tracked your spending patterns for the first time, you are proving to yourself that you are stepping out of financial stress. If you discovered new ways to purchase a home, or found out how to avoid unnecessary fees along the way, you are moving toward ownership.
Each and every one of those things is part of a transformation. And, each one is a win. A solid step in your evolution. A change. Proof of success.
So, you might not have saved 10,000 dollars, yet, but still be on your way to the transformation you desire.
Being aware of your transformation journey shows you that you are winning. A resolution can make you feel like you’re losing.
See?
Transformation tells the truth about what is happening. A resolution can hide the same truth
WHY TRANSFORMATION GIVES YOU CONTROL
Many people never understand this: A resolution is a threat. A transformation is an invitation.
A resolution says: Do this, or you fail.
A transformation says: Grow. This is your direction. Let’s go.
Threats tighten your body and mind. Invitations create space.
The binary structure of resolutions keeps you in a win/lose game. But transformation? It gives you permission to win in a thousand different ways.
If you really do want that 10,000 in your account, it will happen through wins; not through shame about what you failed to do.
FOUR FOUNDATIONAL QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU THIS YEAR
Now, focus on your transformation, not your resolutions.
Ask yourself these four questions:
- In what way am I ready to evolve this year?
- What am I working to manifest, and how many opportunities do I have to do it this year?
- Who do I want to be, inside and out as I move through my year?
- What am I ready to say “no” to this year, and what does that look like?
Using these four questions, you can take any goal and discover the transformation beneath it.
Here are some examples:
If you want to find a partner, your transformation includes evolving your communication and magnetism, finding opportunities to connect, being ready inside and out to share your time and space in a new way, and/or saying “no” to hiding from intimacy. Any time you practice, learn, experiment, or experience any of these things, you win.
If you want a promotion, your transformation includes evolving your leadership, finding opportunities where you can be seen and recognized, being ready inside and out to show your authority, and/or saying “no” to staying in the background. Any time you engage in even one of these, you win.
If you want more quality time with your family, your transformation includes evolving your awareness about time, finding opportunities to schedule what you want to happen, being ready inside and out to make family a priority, and/or saying “no” to events that don’t include your spouse, sibling, parents, or kids. Any time you create space for any of those things, you win.
Your answers to the four foundational questions help you honor your transformation by opening up many, many ways to win.
This is how fulfillment happens. It’s not through resolutions.
THE COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION EXERCISE
I’ve created a full teaching on this with 10 reflection questions that will help you look back at your past resolutions and see the transformation pattern that’s been there all along. When people do this exercise in my Transformation Lab, they often say, “Hey! I have the same answers over and over.”
That’s the point. Your personal evolution has a theme, and these questions help you get in touch with it.
Because when transformation is your compass, you win not someday, not when everything is perfect, but every day, in every direction, with every step you take.
And that is how fulfillment happens.
