Resolutions: Ensuring your 2025 goals pave the way for success
Stepwise goal-setting not only motivates sustained effort by celebrating small wins but also systematically guides individuals towards their ultimate objectives.
Kenya finds itself at a crossroads of innovation and tradition, where our vibrant aspirations light a visible yet murky 2025 path.
Kenyans, celebrated for our resilience, entrepreneurship, creativity, geography, and community spirit, now focus on leveraging technological advancements and social reforms to elevate our quality of life.
From Mombasa's bustling ports to the serene landscapes of the Maasai Mara to bustling Nairobi to fertile up country rolling hills and vast grasslands to the south culminating in our lakeside to the west, the collective resolve to thrive pulses through the heart of the nation.
This period of New Year’s reflection and forward-thinking galvanises individuals across to set personal and communal goals, fostering a wave of transformations aimed at sustainability and inclusiveness.
Since Business Talk’s last expose in the Business Daily about the science of successful New Year’s resolutions for 2018, let us examine the latest research that can enhance our success at meaningful change this year.
Richard Thaler’s nudge theory offers profound insights into the mechanics of human behaviour, essential for understanding why people might falter in their personal resolutions. The theory suggests that by subtly rearranging the decision-making environment, one can influence behaviours without restricting choice.
As an example, by placing healthier food options more prominently in university cafeterias, individuals naturally gravitate toward better eating habits. Such slight nudges, when consistently applied, help individuals overcome the inertia of old habits, guiding them toward more beneficial choices without the need for stringent regulations.
Fascinating longitudinal research by Martin Oscarsson, Per Carlbring, Gerhard Andersson, and Alexander Rozental on New Year's resolutions provides pivotal data on the perseverance of human commitment. The study identifies that setting granular, achievable benchmarks within the framework of a broader New Year’s goal significantly enhances the likelihood of maintaining resolutions.
For example, Kenyans aspiring to improve their health might find success by initially focusing on walking a certain number of steps tracked tangibly by mobile apps each day rather than aiming immediately for more ambitious exercise routines.
Such stepwise goal-setting not only motivates sustained effort by celebrating small wins but also systematically guides individuals towards their ultimate objectives.
Bettina Hochli, Adrian Brugger, and Claude Messner introduced research further that refines our understanding of goal persistence by emphasising the synergy between superordinate and subordinate goals.
By aligning our daily tasks with overarching life values, individuals create a coherent pathway that continually reinforces our commitment to these goals.
In practical terms, a Kenyan entrepreneur might set a subordinate goal to increase business revenues by 10 percent each quarter, underpinned by a superordinate goal to achieve financial independence. Such alignment and clear links to visioning ensures that daily business activities are purposefully connected to broader life ambitions, fostering a more sustained and focused pursuit of success.
Next, Blake Hallinan and a large team of co-researchers recently layered in an international cross-cultural glance into New Year’s with an exploration of how resolutions manifest across different cultures reveal intriguing variations in how societies value personal aspirations.
In Kenya, social circle-oriented resolutions might dominate, reflecting the collectivist values prevalent in our traditional communities while in urban centres individualistic resolutions likely dominate. Individualistic, often urban, societies prioritise self-improvement goals that focus more on personal achievement.
Understanding cultural nuances that are applicable to the world over and remain crucial for global organisations operating in diverse regions, as it influences how they formulate corporate resolutions and engagement strategies that resonate with local values and practices.
This year, armed with insights from global research and grounded in cultural strengths, let us use scientific results to better position and craft our resolutions that are not only achievable but also transformative.
The strategic application of nudge theory and goal-setting research provides individuals and entities with the tools to effect meaningful change, ensuring that the goals set at the dawn of the new year pave the way for our enduring success.
Have a management or leadership issue, question or challenge? Reach out to Dr Scott through X @scottprofessor or email - [email protected]
