My friend, Jamie, says resolutions are ridiculous. There was actual contempt in her text message when she stated this. As a B2B writer and content developer, who’s always seen change as an opportunity for expression, this seemed overly harsh when we exchanged messages on this topic, just after the new year. A quick Google search revealed that Jamie is not alone in her sentiments.
New Year’s resolution statistics shared by statisticsbrain.com show that most Americans do not partake in this practice. The company does not seem to offer any supporting rationale for this, anecdotal or otherwise, but the data leaves me wondering if the idea of committing to improve or change something about ourselves or our businesses has become passé? Or, perhaps the unwillingness to declare a change is because so often these pursuits are fraught with failure. In fact, only 9.2% of people that make them, feel that they are successful in achieving their resolutions.
Let’s face it, making changes is difficult, even for the most committed of individuals and organizations. Recently, my son took the opportunity to draw from his reading of Dickens’, A Christmas Carol, to remind me of this. “Ebenezer Scrooge needed three ghosts to get him to make a change,” he said. He had a point. Even when we’re making a change that will improve who we are as a person, father, friend or business associate, acknowledging needed adjustments is seldom easy and following through on making those adjustments is even harder. I’ve always wondered how old Ebenezer might have done in the long run.
As I researched this topic a little further, I found that while the making of resolutions is decreasing in popularity, the idea of declaring themes is on the rise. Unlike a resolution that is somewhat binary, (for example, “In 2017 I failed to blog, this year I will”) themes are more like guideposts or compass headings. You aim your life, or your business, in the general direction of a theme and let things unfold. U.S. News & world report published an interesting piece on this, a few year’s back, that encouraged readers to try a new year’s theme instead of a resolution. The author makes the case that themes are “…gentler than a rigid resolution….” and allow for course corrections throughout the year if you should, momentarily, get off course.
I like the idea of a theme. Just as when you write a white paper or an ebook or some other piece of content, themes are over-arching. To me, this feels optimistic and provides leeway to adjust to changes that might occur during the year.
The themes you can select are likely endless but could be assertiveness, tolerance, corporate social responsibility, or putting the environment first. Personally, I like consistency. Consistency implies being rhythmic, predictable, measurable—all things that I think can lead to building better customer relationships and growing my business.
Last year, Demand Metric in conjunction with MarcomCentral published “The State and Impact of Content Consistency” which stated that two-thirds of organizations lose deals because they don’t consistently produce the content they need to connect with their clients and prospects. Businesses are leaving money on the table, because of a lack of consistency. I think that’s a significant motivation for being consistent in my own business, but also something that I’ll emphasize with clients when I encourage them to keep a meter with their content creation, blog posts, and social media engagements. The opportunities to be consistent are endless—send invoices out the first week of the month, always use a good brand presence, predictably check-in with clients, ensure that all employees are using the same email signature and so on.
Having a theme doesn’t change any of the goals I have for my business. That’s good because this is not about making a change, as you might with a resolution. I do think, however, that having a theme will give me something to aim for throughout the year and on that, I am resolute.
Woodbridge Copy and Content 