New Year's Resolutions
A Reminder to Not Overlook the Initial Small Actions
It’s that time of year again. To ring in 2026, new year’s resolutions are made with determination to make this year better than the last. Yet, despite all the hoorah and internal promise to commit, majority of these resolutions are abandoned by February and life reverts back to whatever life was last year- merely satisfactory.
This is a reminder at the beginning of the year when few reminders are needed in the face of temporary high motivations.
When embarking on new goals, I tend to overlook the smallness of my efforts, instead focussing on the grandness of achievement. In an aspirational tilt, my pursuit becomes a mythical story of dungeons and dragons- some epic in which I am like Odysseus and crusade past cyclops, sirens, and hydras to finally reach previously unattainable and unspeakable glory.
This is undoubtedly ego embellishing how wonderful the process and the achievement of my resolutions and any goals thereafter.
While this is helpful to give the initial spark for action, it tends to fade once the novelty of pursuit disappears.
In reality, starting new things begin with small, seemingly non-consequential actions.
The initial steps for my resolution to regularly write does not immediately involve publishing some book that will go on the New York Times best sellers list. Instead, it simply consists of sitting down in a quiet space, opening my laptop, navigating to a text editor, and typing away on a keyboard for a couple hours every week.
There is no “glory” in any of these actions. In fact, when I read them out loud, the actions are laughably small- so small that they do not seem worthwhile to pursue in the first place.
The little actions only pale in comparison when I think of my role models and consume podcasts, biographies, and, the worst offender of all, social media, which consist of highlights and certainty brought by hindsight.
How shameful is it to feel proud that I sat down, typed on my laptop, and published a little essay this week while there’s people out there writing critically acclaimed books, building generational companies, and reaching feats unimaginable to the uninitiated?
When I think about admirable figures like Jeff Bezos, I immediately picture success, influence, and a history of successful company and product building. Without deliberate re-wiring, I never see them in their 20s, having either just started their careers or first companies, and wrapped in the uncertainty of “am I doing this right?” and the self doubt of whether it will succeed or blow up in their face within the next couple years.
The starting diminutive actions are vastly understated and inherently unsexy. Regardless, they must be committed to for an extended period of time for any worthwhile exponential results and life quality improvement to appear.
To begin 2026, let’s not overlook the actions to begin whatever the resolution is, for it is the enduring and accumulating flame that eventually razes through the entire forest.