Why Not Monthly Resolutions?

Introduction

UPDATE (9-17-25). I have written up my first post about my first monthly resolution—having a clearer understanding of my finances.

New Year’s Resolutions are terrible. The time between the start and the end of the year is longer than anyone can hold in their mind at once. Moveover, what’s relevant to make a resolution of may not even be the same from the start to the end, so it doesn’t make sense to have a singular resolution throughout the entire year. It’s no wonder why over half of respondents report they drop their resolution after just 3 months, with just 7% making it the whole year (Lloyd).

It follows that if everyone quits their resolutions after a few months, then months are what resolutions should be measured in. I propose moving from whole-year resolutions to monthly resolutions with optional year-long themes based on S.M.A.R.T goals.

S.M.A.R.T Goals

Most people at this point are familiar with S.M.A.R.T goals, yet I would guess that most are also unfamiliar with the original account of S.M.A.R.T goals from 1981. S.M.A.R.T goals emerged out of a business management periodical trying to answer the question How do I lead a department without making false promises? George T. Doran states, [Operating Managers are] busy producing, they usually don’t want to take time to put something on paper that they feel may or may not commit them to a situation in which they may or may not have control over the variables (Doran 35).

Thus S.M.A.R.T goals are a way to control the variables by stating them outright:

Specific—target a specific area for improvement.
Measurable—quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
Assignable—specify who will do it.
Realistic—state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
Time-related—specify when the result(s) can be achieved. (Doran 36)

Interestingly, after hundreds of variants of S.M.A.R.T over the years, the content of the acronym is mostly the same, save for A—which is now usually Attainable instead of Assignable

Another interesting part of the original article is that it does not try to force strict adherence to S.M.A.R.T, It should be understood that the suggested acronym doesn’t mean that every objective will have all five criteria. However, the closer we get to the S.M.A.R.T criteria as a guideline, the smarter our objectives will be (Doran 36). That is, if you get caught up in the details too much, you won’t make good S.M.A.R.T goals.

Monthly Resolutions

What I suggest is to still create a year-long resolution if you would like, but supplement them with monthly resolutions in the form of S.M.A.R.T goals.

Advantages

More start times—it’s harder to get into the mindset of oh, I already dropped it this once, I might as well drop it again.

More focused goals—you can really internalize that you only have 4½ weeks to make something happen, so you’re more encouraged to start.

Opportunities to reflect—after the 4½ weeks, you have some time to reflect on how you did that month, so you can improve your processes for the next month and the next resolution

Timeline flexibility—if a resolution takes longer than a month, you can break it up into a multiple month goal. You aren’t stuck with a set of New Year’s resolutions which may have completely different timelines

Connection to Agile

Those familiar with the Agile methodology will certainly see parallels to Agile with this approach. We can think of each of the each year as an Epic, each month as a Sprint and the end of each month as a Retrospective, but I don’t think we should get caught up on the terminology and formalisms. The key takeaway is that taking small steps tends to lead to better results when the goal isn’t necessarily clearly defined.

I’m Going To Do It, Maybe You Should Too

Starting this month,August, 2025,I am starting monthly resolutions. I have already done them informally in the past—July 2024 I had the goal to be 5′ 10″ more often (improve my posture)—but now I will more formally set a goal every month and report back on this blog.

My August resolution is to have a clearer understanding of my finances. In S.M.A.R.T terms looks like:

Specific—I will figure out a method—paper or software—that can help me record my expenses, and view my assets across all my accounts.
Measurable—I will have succeeded if all transactions across all accounts are recorded, all transactions match and all balances on my ledger match with the balances on the online ledgers.
Attainable—I am limiting myself to the month of August to start, so I do not need to record every transaction I have ever made since I was a toddler.
Related—by having everything across all accounts recorded for my own records, I will have clearer understanding of my finances.
Time-bound—I am looking at the month of August, and must have everything done by September 1st.

I’ll link to my progress once I type up my post.