I have found New Year’s resolutions to be an interesting phenomenon. They seem to be a declaration of inadequacy we feel about an aspect of our lives that we promise ourselves, and maybe others, that we are embarking on a mission to remedy.

It is difficult for me to take a declaration of a New Year’s resolution seriously… actually I’m not sure that I remember the last time I did.

Okay, Karim, this is pretty negative…

Well, there is nothing pretty about it. And you are right, it sounds negative.

(Did you just call me snarky? Only my mother-in-law calls me that).

History

If you look up New Year’s resolutions, you will find that it is a common tradition found in much of the world dating back to the Babylonian and Roman traditions. Interestingly enough, the Babylonians used the start of each year as a time to “return borrowed objects and pay their debts.” We will circle back to this later.

Let’s fast forward a bit - to the medieval era. The knights took what was called a “peacock vow,” which meant they were re-affirming “their commitment to chivalry.”

Ultimately, today this tradition has continued to mark a time for reflection and goal-setting around self-improvement.

Today

Are New Year’s resolutions helpful? Are they effective at achieving our desired outcomes?

An article about a research study by Quicken reveals that “six weeks into the new year, 62% of Americans will have already given up on their New Year’s resolutions.” This means that by Valentine’s Day, more likely than not, we will not only forget to get a gift for our valentine, but we will also have forgotten about our resolutions.

So, did you keep yours in 2020?

If you didn’t, don’t beat yourself up - neither did most of us and “93% of respondents say they have failed to keep a resolution in the past.” Why do so many of us abandon our resolutions? And what can we do to solve this problem?

If this interests you, keep reading. If you are a rockstar when it comes to keeping your New Year’s resolutions you can probably skip this one; however, you may find it useful to read on if you plan to keep reading the blog because we will explore the topic of finances and financial planning soon. (This post will be a launching pad for that series.)

The study also revealed the reasons we report for breaking our resolutions. Here’s what the study found as the most common reasons for abandoning our resolutions (aka - our excuses):

• Got too busy

• Tried to do too much at once

• Lost interest

Take a moment to think about these and ask yourself how you feel about those reasons. Are any of those your reasons? I’m a bit puzzled about the lost interest one.

I have read various blogs and articles, listened to podcasts, and looked at some studies regarding strategies and tactics we could use to keep our resolutions. There is not one single solution that will work for everyone. These magical solution unicorns don’t exist. People are too complex and different for specific tactics to work for everyone.

It takes paying attention and not allowing competing interests to blind us to what we know to be true. Hold this idea for a moment. (This is also something I hope to build-on, discuss, and explore together throughout this blog and journey).

If we can reduce something to the simplest form possible, we often can get closer to the source of our problem. By starting closer to the source, we can build, adapt, and most importantly learn as we develop and improve ourselves through the process of developing our solutions.

I think of this problem-solving approach like this:

You want to be good at fishing (to use a familiar fable).

Someone can hand you a fish. Or you can be taught how to fish.

We all know this story and likely understand it is better to learn how to fish for ourselves. But sometimes the person trying to teach us how to fish gives us specific strategies and tactics that work for him or her. However, maybe these strategies and tactics don’t work well for you and me. Maybe the fish we are trying to catch need different bait? Maybe who we are means we need a different tactic to be good at catching fish. Everyone is different and everyone has different circumstances, abilities, and limitations.

A field training officer sometimes coaches by showing how he or she does the job. That can be very helpful at times. It can be instructive. But it only teaches the student a specific tactic and strategy. There is a time and place for that.

A great training officer makes your life challenging by not giving you a specific strategy or tactic. Instead, this type of coach pushes you to make your own decisions about the strategies and tactics you need to develop and use to solve the problem. The academy should have taught you the foundational and basic knowledge and skill. An effective coach should act as a mentor rather than a teacher most of the time. This coach will challenge you to come up with solutions and then explain them. Otherwise, how else will you know if you can catch fish on your own? Or handle the next call on your own.

To learn and grow effectively we must be pushed just past our comfort zone.

Are you making New Year’s resolutions that focus on outcomes rather than processes that allow you to grow and learn?

Solution-making

Maybe the problem with New Year’s resolutions is that we are all trying to use similar tactics of goal-setting to solve the most common problems plaguing our lives.

The idea I want to explore with you is that we should take the mentorship approach - even with ourselves. Yes, mentor yourself. Have you ever asked yourself for advice?

Don’t seek what may appear at the surface-level as simple tactics and strategies to accomplish difficult goals. If it were that easy, nearly everyone would do it. Life does not appear to work that way. Things that are increasingly difficult to do are accomplished by a decreasing number of people.

There is nothing wrong with learning strategies and tactics that have worked for someone else. It it important to remember that the likely truth is that we are only seeing, hearing, and/or reading surface-level advice.

Often these tactics are referred to as life-hacks. For example, allow a cheat-day in your workout or nutritional goal routine.

Sometimes the strategy is to develop what is called a SMART goal - one that is Specific | Measurable | Achievable | Realistic | Timely or Time-bound. This is a great strategy for a lot of applications.

But have these tactics and strategies worked for most people when we look at New Year’s resolutions? Have they worked for you?

If not, I’m glad you are still with me!

Top Resolution from 2020

Let’s take a look at last year’s top resolutions in the United States, according to statista.com. Remember how the Babylonians used the new year as a time to “return borrowed objects and pay their debts.” We will examine this popular, even to this day, resolution - to manage finances better.

Managing finances is one of the most common conversations I have had with officers throughout my career. I have found it to be a source of significant stress for many law enforcement families. Just this week I had a conversation with a friend and colleague that has made tremendous progress financially and described achieving a better financial journey as “freeing.” That’s exactly right!

Last summer I spent hours talking to a few officers that were eligible to retire. They weren’t retiring because of their dedication to financially assist their children to go to college, or to pay-off their mortgages, or to save more money before retiring so they felt more secure. One common theme I noticed while speaking with them is that they had wished they could go back in time to when they were younger. Why? So they could tell themselves a few important things that we had discussed together. We will discuss these important things in upcoming blogs. (Quick preview and teaser: the power of compound interest and time.)

For this post, I will share with you the most common reason I have learned cops struggle with financial independence. Credit card debt. We are not the only ones struggling with this. As a country, we are a nation of people willing to take on debt. A lot of it. Financial education is hardly stressed in my experience. Yet, I can think of very few more practical topics to teach our youth about.

The total (meaning it includes mortgages, student and auto loans, and credit cards) US Consumer debt has reached nearly $14 trillion.

Scale | Quick Nerd-alert

(Skip to the next section if you don’t want to try to think about how much 14 trillion dollars actually is.)

14,000,000,000,000,000 | that is 14 trillion, that’s right… that’s twelve zeros!

If every second we paid one dollar to pay-off that $14 trillion debt, it would take us roughly 444,000 years. Oh, by the way, that is without interest.

Credit Card Debt

We will focus on a specific type of debt that is incredibly detrimental to achieving a better financial future - credit card debt.

Fay (2019) states that “on average, each household with a credit card carries $8,398 in credit card debt.”

Let me repeat that… $8,398.

Maybe like the Babylonians, we can use the New Year to focus on paying down our debts if we are serious about resolutions to better manage our finances.

Well, how do we do that?

Tactics and strategies are likely not going to be as effective as exploring the source of our problem. If we are to set goals around self-improvement, we must first understand what we need to improve.

Being Resolute | Not Having Resolutions

The problem is not lack of having specific tactics and strategies. It is the lack of self-knowledge.

We must pay attention to what matters to us. Our actions can help us understand what actually matters to us. We often think we know what is important to us. But our actions, as they say, speak louder than our words.

Is financial independence important to you? Do you act like it?

Instead of making a resolution for an outcome you want, I challenge you to revolutionize your paradigm on New Year’s resolutions. It is time to be resolute!

When I used the Google search engine to look up the word “resolute,” it provided me with this definition:

admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering.

I really like it. I want to challenge us to be admirably purposeful.

New Year’s should be a time of retrospection and introspection. Are our actions commensurate to our values and intentions? If we want to be better stewards of our resources (like money, but really it could be any resource - most important is our time, in my opinion) then we must be willing to seek understanding how we have gone off-course. Only then will we know how to course-correct ourselves and determine what strategies and tactics will be useful to attempt in our pursuits.

Then, we must remain determined and unwavering in pursuit of our purpose.

The important question to start with…

What is my purpose (behind this resolution)? If you want to manage your finances better, don’t just set a goal. Start by reducing down to the simplest answer at the core of your purpose. Keep asking yourself why until you can’t reduce the answers any further. You may think you know why, but this exercise can be incredibly revealing if done properly and in earnest.

Brief example:

I want to manage my finances better.

Why?

So I can stress less about money and sleep better.

Why do you stress about money and sleep poorly?

Because I worry if a financial emergency happens, I’ll be in a difficult situation and will likely go further into debt.

Why do you worry about a financial emergency?

Because I feel responsible as a parent and/or financial provider in my family that I must prepare for that. Others are counting on me to be better at managing my finances.

This can continue and you might explore hopes and dreams of securing a legacy for your family. You might find fears and reasons that might be surprising to you. Once you reach those reasons and bring them forth, now you have shed light on your purpose. We often blind ourselves to this truth due to competing interests. Financially, the truth is that I would rather have things now and ignore my fears than sacrifice today and face my fears. We all struggle with these competing interests, fears, and then blinding ourselves to the truth.

My guess is that if you are still reading this blog, you have an admirable purpose inside that you know you must pursue with determination and unwavering spirit.

Maybe it is time for you to just be resolute instead of setting New Year’s resolutions. You know what you need to do. You know it isn’t about using some life-hacks or strategies you just have not learned. You know that if you truly want to change something in your life, it is you that has the power and ultimate responsibility to bring about that change.

You ready?

You can do it. Start today. Not because of an arbitrary calendar day as the Earth revolves around the Sun. But rather because you have the freedom and power to do it. You have the responsibility to yourself first.

I’m so glad you shared your time with me. Thank you for that and I want to wish you a healthy and prosperous New Year.

I plan on writing a series on financial independence. I invite you to leave a comment or contact me and let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback. Following the social media channels (see below) will allow you to stay updated on blog posts being released and any news from Boukabou Solutions.