Hello,

There’s always plenty of virtual words written on the concept of New Years resolutions, some good and some bad - here’s what I have to offer. Disclaimer: I think they are great.

And make sure you scroll down for the best way to come up with goals for 2023.

✅ Hello 2023 goals, goodbye New Years resolutions

It’s that time of year already. 2023 is around the corner and you’re thinking ahead about how you can improve next year.

New Years resolutions get a lot of stick every year, though. Why not focus on goals year round, rather than at the start of January?

Fair enough. But a new calendar year is as good a time as any to reset, with the days getting longer once again and spring not too far away.

Plus, surely thinking about New Years resolutions is better than not thinking about them?

Perhaps the connotations around ‘New Years resolutions’ - mainly that they are forgotten after a month and tend to be generic, unmeasurable fitness goals - are the main issue people have with them.

So let’s rebrand as 2023 Goals and go from there.

❌ The No-Nonsense Guide to 2023 Goals

Coming up with a non-generic, personalised, and actually useful goal for 2023 is not as easy as it sounds. There’s 3 reasons, using the classic resolution of ‘lose weight’ as a focus:

1. Coming up with 2023 goals takes some introspection and understanding of where we are, right now. Goals off the top of the head tend to be too generic and not personalised: ‘lose weight’ often should actually be things like eat 150g protein to add muscle, lift weights 3x per week, 10k steps per day, stop buying junk food

2. Goals tend to be hard to measure and hard to track: ‘lose weight’ should be introduce calorie deficit of 200 cals for 6 weeks, check weight loss and adjust accordingly for next 6 weeks until I reach total weight loss of 15lbs.

3. Focusing on a GOAL (lose weight) is less important or rewarding than the PROCESS: ‘lose weight’ should be get 10k steps per day, 200 calorie deficit for 6 weeks starting 2nd Jan)

I think 2) and 3) - making a goal measurable (SMART) and focusing on the process rather than goal - are pretty common knowledge.

But the actual initial thinking of WHAT to focus on and WHY that I mentioned in 1) is less recognised, so let’s focus on that.

✍🏻 How do I choose what to focus on? (Year Review)

A quick search on Google tells me there’s 8 ‘life areas’, including wealth, relationships and fitness. 8 ‘life areas’ and whatever else comes with them is a lot to focus on, but worry not.

Introspection, or just having a good long think about ourselves, is a key tenet of self-improvement. To know where you want to go, you need to know where you are. This is why journalling and verbal therapy are so effective. And this is where the Year Review comes in.

There are some amazing yearly review templates to use that help to focus in on what has worked and what hasn’t over the past year, with the aim to use these findings to put together goals for 2023.

Here’s the best Year Review template available written by the excellent Anthony Gustin. It’s really long, and that’s the point. As it says, it should take a few days on work to really figure out what has and hasn’t worked and what to focus on in the new year.

Enjoy - and as always, feel free to reply to this email if you found this useful 👍🏻

This week: ⬇️

🗡 I’m still reading the Game of Thrones series, now on book 3 - A Storm of Swords. I’m going between audiobook (travel) and Kindle (bed) versions

🎧 I’m listening to Fred again.. - Studio Live 3 - the best one so far and an ideal follow up to seeing the man himself live last week at O2 Academy

📺 I’m watching Dopesick - WOW. As good as everyone says it is (and tough to watch at times)

🕺🏻 is the final week I’ll be working on Strictly Come Dancing. It’s been my first job in TV since switching from advertising back in September. I was terrified on my first day but little did I know how amazing the next 3 months would be and now it’s about to end! Time really does fly

💭 I’ll be practising what I preach by doing a yearly review using the template above. Maybe I’ll share some of the main things I discover in a future Weekly Wharmby

Question: Though Weekly Wharmby is nice and snappy, I wonder if the name of this email should tell a new / potential new reader what it’s about and what they’ll gain from reading it. What do you think?

💬 And finally, a quote

It’s freezing this week, so this couldn’t be more relevant.

Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling

Thanks! We are growing!

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And as always, feel free to reply to these email if you found this useful!

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