Why your New Year’s resolution should be to keep promises to yourself

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As an entrepreneur and leadership expert, Erika Sinner has worked with people from all walks of life. She says success in the New Year ultimately depends on trusting yourself.

With Halloween just around the corner, many are preparing for the festive, wintry holidays that occur throughout November and December. Once the holiday shopping is done, New Year’s Day will undoubtedly roll in, and many will face the ever-lingering question: what is your New Year’s resolution?

Answers may range from getting healthier, getting organized, asking for a promotion, or spending more time with friends or family, but many may be unsure what their resolution is. But what if they are asking the wrong question?

For entrepreneur, leadership expert, and Blow Your Mind podcast host Erika Sinner, the New Year can be an opportunity to teach yourself something more lasting than how to set a goal. It can teach you how to trust yourself.

The problem with traditional resolutions

Sinner believes that many spend time trying to prove to others that they can be counted on. However, she believes that the relationship that changes everything is the one a person has with themself.

As a result, traditional resolutions can become unkind ways to measure yourself against an ideal version of who you think you’re supposed to be. However, what if the goal wasn’t to become “Better?”

At her day job, where she owns and runs Directorie, Sinner sees her colleagues as capable, accomplished leaders who are dependable and used to being the one everyone counts on. But being capable doesn’t mean you have to stop yourself from doing what you want.

Sinner doesn’t want her team to set their sights on “better.” Instead, she wants them to clarify what they actually want by saying it out loud and taking responsibility for going after it.

“You don’t build a career waiting for someone else to decide it’s your turn,” the entrepreneur says.

The idea of expectation

During the holidays, especially around the New Year, people want more for themselves. That distinction matters, according to Sinner, in part because many people become good at reaching for expectations they never consciously choose.

These expectations, which can range from striving to be successful without bragging about it, to wanting the promotion without asking for it, to even the obligations of being a good partner and parent while still wanting enough for oneself, can weigh a person down. For Sinner, the start of a new year is a good time to stop and ask the most important question.

That question is: “what do I actually want?”

Starting small for big concepts

Sinner believes one of the biggest reasons resolutions fail is that people make them too big at the beginning. Someone who decides that they’re going to get promoted in the New Year has created an outcome they can’t control. Someone who plans to book a meeting with their boss and tell them they want to be considered for that promotion, however, has created an actionable plan they can act on and control.

At Directorie, Sinner has seen what happens when capable people have goals, but don’t turn them into actions. Wanting something quietly and hoping someone notices isn’t a plan. According to Sinner, that’s a wish.

Rather than focusing only on the desired result, Sinner encourages people to focus on the promises they make to themselves and whether they follow through.

Making the plan happen

While taking steps toward one’s future is a goal anyone can have, Sinner believes that doing it in a way that keeps you in control is part of making that plan actionable. This can be as simple as asking for a meeting, taking an hour for yourself, making a phone call, saying no, or finally saying out loud what you have been thinking for months. 

According to Sinner, every time you follow through on a small commitment, you are building evidence that you can trust yourself. The same is true for Sinner herself and the leaders she works with at her company, who strive for evidence-based outcomes they can help shape through their own actions.

This evidence can come from the actions you take to improve yourself or your circumstances, even the smallest steps. You can have the conversation, ask for the promotion, tell them what you want, and follow through, but none of this evidence happens unless you actively choose to act.

Confidence doesn’t come before action. Instead, you build it afterward by tracking what happened. That evidence ultimately changes how you see yourself.

Choosing yourself and your life

While the initial resolution may change even after the New Year has come and gone, Sinner believes that the most powerful resolution isn’t the one that produces the largest, most visible accomplishment. Instead, it may be the one that makes you stop and think about your power to choose your own path, and the life you want to live.

“The New Year gives us a natural moment to ask ourselves what we want, but I think the more important question is whether the life you are building is actually the one you chose,” Sinner shares. “Not the life your parents wanted for you. Not the life your friends are living. Not the life society told you that you should want. What do you want? You do not need a new year, a new month or even a Monday to choose differently. You can decide right now. Make one promise to yourself about what comes next, and keep it.”

The idea behind the perfect resolution isn’t about creating the perfect version of yourself or checking the box because you feel you’re supposed to. For Sinner, that’s anything but true.

To balance the “perfect resolution” with the one that is “perfect for you,” Sinner believes you start by naming what’s true, deciding what matters, and saying it out loud. Then you follow up with the one choice that supports it, and keep acting on it until you have the evidence to trust yourself.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t to build a life that looks good from the outside. It’s to build one that you have chosen for yourself.