Workplace New Year’s Resolutions for 2023

Donna Foulis Date published: Dec 22, 22

As we enter 2023, making workplace New Year’s resolutions is a good way to begin the year with a clear focus.

Setting your New Year’s resolutions on the 1^st January for what you want to change or achieve in the coming year is a long standing tradition; as is breaking them a few days into the month! Healthy eating, making life changes and improving habits are popular themes that many people list off, but what about what you want to achieve at work in the new year?

Setting a specific set of resolutions for the workplace is a great way to kick off the new year with purpose. It gives you goals to focus on, which can be useful for beating the January blues now that the festive period is over and help to motivate your employees and colleagues.

The significance of New Year’s resolutions

The practice of setting out resolutions for the new year ahead harks back 4,000 years to the ancient Babylonians. Back then, these promises were made to their gods to pay off any debts and return borrowed items. These days, New Year’s resolutions don’t have religious significance and are usually focused on self-improvement. Despite the commonly accepted eventuality that most of these resolutions will fail in a matter of days, we keep on making these resolutions year after year. Why is that?

Looking at the psychology behind it, there’s something very appealing about the prospect of the fresh start that the new year offers. This reaches us at an emotional level, particularly if things in our lives have been difficult and we find ourselves not where we want to be. The promise of a New Year’s resolution is a chance to turn over a new leaf and change things, and because it’s such a universal activity it feels like we’re all in the same boat- starting the new year afresh.

Why so many New Year’s resolutions fail

Going back to the history of making resolutions for the coming year and how that has evolved over the years, we usually only make resolutions to one person- ourselves. This, coupled with the fact that they tend to focus on personal goals and self-improvement, means that there is no-one holding us accountable or expecting results. It’s all down to our own motivation and habit building, which of course takes time and effort.

Aside from this, another common reason that new year’s resolutions don’t go anywhere is because we set ourselves unrealistic goals that are difficult to achieve. The same could be said for making statements that are too broad or vague, for example, ‘eating healthy.’ There are no specifics which mention what type of foods we want to eat more or less of, or something to measure our progress against-which makes it easier to ignore or forget about.

How to set successful New Year’s resolutions

Despite all the failure statistics, it’s entirely possible to set New Year’s resolutions that will stick. Here’s a few tips for making them work:

1. Focus on what’s really important to you. Rather than collating a huge list, create a few goals based on the most important areas.
2. Write them in SMART format. Making them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound gives you something tangible to follow.
3. Break them into small chunks. Say your resolution is to write a book- on its own that’s a hefty goal. Setting yourself a realistic daily word count breaks it down into achievable tasks.
4. Track your progress. Using online tools and apps to record your activity or results makes it easy to see the progress you’ve made. Once you see those tangible results, it provides motivation to keep going.

What do you want to achieve in the workplace in 2023?

We asked our community on social media what their priorities were for the coming year. The poll results are as follows:

Expanding your skill set

With so much change and disruption having occurred in the past couple of years, it makes sense that branching out and learning new skills is the top of the list for many of you. With advances in technology and the continued popularity of remote working set to be key workplace trends in 2023, expanding your digital skills and embracing technology solutions is going to be key.

Being proactive

Looking ahead and taking the initiative to bring ideas to life and complete tasks not only helps things in the workplace to run smoother but gives you a greater sense of control and satisfaction over what you do. Combining this with getting the right technology on board, solutions like Q-Pulse allow you to leave manual processes behind and foster a more proactive system for managing key processes.

Having confidence to take risks

Taking risks is never an easy thing to do. Our brains like to list all the potential negative outcomes which can prevent us from taking a chance on something new. The key to building the right confidence is to have enough data and information behind you so that you know you’re making a good decision. A solution for risk management helps to provide the insight needed to take risks and turn them into new opportunities.

Work on networking

While other priorities may take precedence for many of you, networking is still a valuable activity to incorporate in your plans for New Year. This could be as small as being active on LinkedIn and engaging with your network or committing to networking and making new connections at work events or conferences. Talking to someone new can help to give you a new perspective on things and you never know where it could lead.

Setting your goals

It may be midway through January already, but there’s still time to assess what you want to achieve in the workplace and set goals to facilitate this. Communicating these goals to your colleagues and employees and how they can get involved will help to get your team involved, turning them into wider objectives.

Setting your goals

Browse our range of solutions to see how we can help you achieve your workplace New Year’s resolutions.