In 30-some years of professional business planning, I've developed a few theories on what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to trying to get something done. Usually I'm talking about business planning, and how to make plans become actions, how to make planning a long-term management improvement, rather than some pieces of paper that don't mean very much stuffed in a drawer somewhere. So today, applying some of my planning fundamentals to New Year's Resolutions, I've developed this list of three points that I hope can help us all — certainly me included — with those resolutions.

1. Choose Your Target Well

Obvious? Good. It should be. Change what you do, not who you are. Change habits, not attributes. Change behavior.

Make sure you're focusing on things you can control. You and only you. In budgeting we talk about discretionary vs. non-discretionary spending. That works for life too; discretionary behavior, things you can control. You know the difference.

2. Make it Concrete, Specific, and Measurable

Avoid generalities. For example, not just "lose weight," but rather stop drinking soft drinks between meals, or stop eating after 8 p.m., or stop having the donut with the morning coffee. Not just "more exercise," but what days, how much, what routines, how long.

Try this test: Ask yourself how you'll know, two weeks, a month, three months from now, if you kept your resolution.

Break your habits or behaviors down into specifics. Break them into pieces you can follow. Are you too quick to get angry with your kids? Break that down into something you can control, like maybe two full minutes of quiet time per day with each kid. Yes or no, did you have that time together. One time per day your kid gets a moment to talk to you, without rushing. Break it down into something you can track. (I'm father of five, I know the value of setting a moment aside from the chaos, and how hard it is to do sometimes.)

3. Set Specific Review Tactics

Wow, this sounds really nerdy and list-making annoying, doesn't it? Scares me. Maybe that's why I'm not so good at resolution keeping (do what I say, not what I do). But I said I'm taking this from my business planning practice, and in business planning if you don't schedule your plan review in advance you've diminished your chances of implementation by half or more. So in New Year's Resolutions, set up your reviews.

That would mean, hmmm, maybe you're going to promise to record success, or failures, to do your specific measurable actions, such as sending an email to yourself every day you run that mile or skip the muffin, or maybe an email every day you don't run the mile or don't skip the muffin.

That would mean maybe you remind yourself to look at the results the third Thursday of every month, or every Saturday morning; did you stop the after-dinner snack, do you weigh less. Or did you stop and get that special daily minute or two with your kid?

A Final Note

It's slightly embarrassing: I don't claim any real expertise with the kind of life-changing stuff that New Year's Resolutions ought to be made of. Giving advice in this realm is scary and probably presumptuous, so I have to apologize. But I've watched this kind of thing for years in business planning, and I think these three rules might help.

Now I'm going to try to practice what I preach.

(Note: I am reposting this here for my readers; I posted it on Small Business Trends about an hour earlier. Tim.)