Don't make New Year's resolutions: Do this instead

New Year’s resolutions are a dime a dozen, and 80 percent of them fail anyway.

I never make them.

I do something else instead: I plan.

Planning is different than resolving or goal-setting. A resolution is identifying a destination; planning is the road map that gets you there. As the author of several highway books, you might imagine I’m all about itineraries. But planning works whether you’re on the road or at home.

Why? Two reasons.

For one thing, it locks you in. If you’re an author, once you’ve agreed to a deadline for publication, you’ve made a commitment to someone else (your publisher and/or readers if you’re preselling and have announced the date on Amazon). If you’re on a trip to do research for a book and you’ve made reservations at a specific hotel, you know where you’re going to stay and when.

Fooling ourselves

Resolutions are based on a lie we tell ourselves: Because it’s a new year, we have a fresh start, and that’s all we need to succeed.

Bullshit. It’s an opportunity to succeed (and really just a psychological one: You can set a goal or make a plan any day of the year). The rest is up to you.

Resolutions are amorphous. They give you an out. Planning holds your feet to the fire.

I’ve already planned to release at least five books this year. That’s not just a resolution: I’ve identified specific cities I’ll be covering as the next installments in my Century Cities series: Greensboro, Asheville, Winston-Salem, Reno, and Carson City. Last week, I took photos for the Greensboro project, and this weekend, I’ll be in Asheville. I’ve identified specific historical sites I want to photograph, and I’ve listed them on my phone, so I know where I’m going.

Resolutions involve two steps: Goal-setting and fulfillment. But they don’t tell you how to get from one place to the other because they leave two crucial steps in the process: setting your course and following it, otherwise known as planning and execution. If you’re an author, this may involve creating an outline. In the case of my highway books, this meant identifying chapter topics; my Century Cities books all follow the same format by decade (with one slight variation), so I don’t have to rethink things with every new book.

(Note: I don’t outline my novels; I just start with a general idea and let the characters take me from there, which just goes to show there’s an exception to every rule.)

Getting specific

The more specific your goal, the more likely you are to formulate and execute a plan. For instance, you may decide “I want to lose weight,” or you might say “I want to lose 50 pounds.” The second statement identifies a clearer objective and gives you some hints about the plans you might make to get there. Chances are, you’ll need a different kind of diet to lose 50 pounds than you will to drop just 10.

If you’re an author, you might tell yourself: “I want to write a book this year.” But if you have a good idea what you want to write about, your projected word count, your target audience, etc., you’ll be a lot more likely to get off your ass and plan. I can’t count the times I’ve heard someone say, “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” But they’ve never done it. That’s a failed resolution right there. A successful one begins by setting goals that are as specific as possible, which sets the stage for planning.

A successful journey involves four steps:

1.      Goal-setting (where you’re going, specifically)

2.      Plotting a course (how you’ll get there)

3.      Execution (following through by staying true to your course)

4.      Fulfillment (achieving your goal)

The first and last steps are easy. The hard work takes place in the middle.

It’s natural to want to leap right from resolution/goal to fulfillment. But life doesn’t work that way, and you’ll only be disappointed. You have to put in the work. Resolutions are like lottery tickets: They’re rarely winners. Planning is like a successful career: You’ll be amazed how much you’ve accomplished when you reach the end and start looking back.

I’ve had two careers: I spent 32 years as a journalist at five daily newspapers and one weekly. In the past decade, I’ve written and published 39 books. No. 40, The Great American Shopping Experience, will be out in five days. I’ve published 18 in the past two years, and not a single resolution was involved. A lot of planning was, though.

Whether you want to write a book, quit smoking, lose weight, cut your cholesterol, win a competition... whatever your goal or resolution, it’s easy to say, “I want to do that.” The proof is in the pudding: Making a specific plan and following it to completion.

Don’t “just do it.” Plan it first.