ProFeds Founder, Chris Kowalik, unpacks why most New Year’s resolutions fail and how federal employees can reframe their mindset to get what they really want.
Key takeaways:
- The key behind why most New Year’s resolutions fail
- The power of incremental changes
- The breakdown of effective goal-setting
- The reward of meaningful resolutions
Additional Resources:
- Local workshop locations and dates: FedImpact.com/attend
- To be introduced to a local financial professional: FedImpact.com/request-to-meet
- Book mentioned, Atomic Habits by James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
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Transcript of this episode:
Originally released on 1/9/2025
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If you’ve been on this planet for a half a second, you’ve probably set a New Year’s resolution or two, maybe you’ve even intentionally waited until January to start working toward a goal because you think it’s some magical time of year or that fresh start that you’ve been needing.
You’ve also likely experience that disappointment in the coming weeks when your best laid plans begin to fall apart. In fact, the second Friday in January is known as Quitters Day when most people abandon their resolutions altogether.
Hi, Chris Kowalik of ProFeds here and welcome to the FedImpact podcast where we offer candid insights on your federal retirement. You guys know this show is all about helping you to get super clear on what you want retirement to look like and taking action to make it happen.
Listen, leading up to the new year, it’s a really natural time to take stock in what we’re doing with our lives and finding those areas where we can improve. In today’s episode, we’re going to unpack New Year’s resolutions and how to really reframe them in your mind to work in your favor.
If you like what you hear on today’s episode, I would be super grateful if you be sure to subscribe, review and share our podcast with your friends and co-workers who are also federal employees who can benefit from this message. Let’s jump right in here.
Quitting Your New Year’s Resolutions (to Get What You Really Want!)
One of the reasons I love New Year’s resolutions is because they’re inherently optimistic. For a few days in the year, we truly believe that we are capable of achieving so much. We picture the very best version of ourselves doing the things that we know we’re supposed to do, all with grit and determination and an amazing amount of discipline.
It’s also why I hate New Year’s resolutions because frankly, the rest of the world doesn’t stop because we decided that this is the year we’re going to get in shape or save more money or fill in the blank, whatever the other New Year’s resolutions that you might have struck.
We have to with all of our normal life as we’re trying to better ourselves. And by any measure, that’s really hard to do, especially the bigger and bigger the goal. So it’s no wonder that within two weeks of the new year beginning, those resolutions are left at the curb.
But I’d hate to discount New Year’s resolutions altogether, right? Of course, we love that optimistic side of the house and that mindset that we can get in at least for a short while. So instead of abandoning or discounting those resolutions altogether, I’d like to look at this from a different angle.
And one that’s perhaps a little bit more palatable for most people than some big grand vision that fizzles out before the new year even really gets started. So to do that, we’re going to cover a couple of things during this episode.
The first is the key behind why most New Year’s resolutions fail. Next is the power of incremental changes. I think you guys are going to love this part. Next is the breakdown of effective goal setting, and then the reward of meaningful resolutions, or whatever you might call them.
Some people just hate the word resolution because they have this in their mind that it’s something that they quit. So whatever you might call this, how do you figure out what the reward is so that it can help pull you into that future bigger vision of yourself, that optimistic one that you felt could really tackle anything?
Of course, we’re going to have some resources available to you today that I will be sharing at the end of this episode. I assure you that we will make all those resources available in the show notes and you will have an opportunity to get those as we get through the session.
Why Most Resolutions Fail
Let’s start by talking about why most New Year’s resolutions fail. The reality is that most resolutions are just too big without a real plan. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed, and frankly, most resolutions make you give up something and that doesn’t sound good. Like you’re already starting out the new year thinking about what you’re not going to get. Instead, I’d love for us to think about resolutions in the framework of what does this get me?
And then the last reason that we know that resolutions fail is that motivation is different than discipline. We might be really motivated to do something at the beginning of the year, but it’s hard to maintain the discipline to actually carry that out. So I want to talk about the idea of sweeping changes, like huge, big revolutionary changes and incremental changes.
Sweeping Changes vs. Incremental Changes
When we’re thinking about resolutions, we like to go big or go home. We have to think of this massive goal that in many normal person’s brain would be far-fetched, unattainable, all the things we know are not supposed to be related with a goal.
And so there’s this idea that if you focus on the system, like the things that you need to be doing day in and day out instead of the goal, I mean, not that we don’t know what the goal is and that we don’t have that in our sights, but the idea that if the goal is to win the game, you don’t spend practice staring at the scoreboard.
You don’t spend the game staring at the scoreboard. You put in the work, you do the steps, the actions that are going to get you there. That’s the part that we’re going to be talking about today is the system that will help you to reach that goal.
And next is this idea of streaks. In the world of Apple Watches and all of these apps that put you on a streak where every day you’re hitting a goal, it can feel like you’re really missing out if you happen to not meet that goal in a particular day. I don’t want you to get too caught up in the streak or that perfection because the perfection to reach the goal is not necessary, right?
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Focusing on the system, not just the goal. The concepts that we’re going to be talking about today come from a gentleman who wrote a book, his name is James Clear, the book is Atomic Habits. I have listened to this book probably 10 times. I’m fascinated by this book, and I’ll link to it in the show notes. If you’re curious to make sure that you get the right book, you can hop into the show notes.
But what I love about James’ thought on resolutions and really goals, is that we all get to make choices and every choice that we make is a vote for the kind of person we want to be. And he makes an interesting and kind of timely comment, just given the time of year that we are in, it’s kind of like an election, right?
You don’t need a unanimous vote, you just need more votes in the direction that you’re going, to know that you’re on your way. So we don’t need to have perfection in reaching our goal, but we do need to make sure that when it’s our time to cast a vote based on our actions, that we are doing the things necessary to put us in the right direction.
What’s the identity that you want to associate with?
And another concept that James Clear talks about in this book is what’s the identity that you want to be associated with?
There are some kind of interesting elements to this discussion that he has, and I’ll try my best to summarize them for you today, and I’m going to kind of put my own spin on this as well, but just to give you an idea of how to reframe some of this thinking. So questions like…
- What do you prioritize?
- What choices do you make?
- What metrics or numbers do you pay attention to?
- What do you eliminate?
- What’s your mindset?
- What’s the reward or the payoff when you reach this goal, or get closer to this goal?
I’ll use an example that’s a very common New Year’s resolution, and it’s one that everyone can relate to some degree. This idea of I want to lose 50 pounds, or whatever the number might be for you, that’s a very typical New Year’s resolution.
But I think what we’re probably trying to associate with the identity that we want to have is to be someone who’s healthy, and someone who’s healthy makes smart food choices, not because it’s a punishment to them or because they’re being told that they’re not allowed to have a certain type of food, but they’re making good food choices because they know that that is a vote for being more like someone who’s healthy.
Same thing with someone who chooses to be active. You have regular exercise, movement throughout the day. You take the stairs when you can, those types of things. Those are all little votes to be the person that you want to be.
Next, someone who prioritizes things like medical appointments and screenings. So your regular checkups, your mammograms, your prostate exams, your colonoscopies, all the fun stuff that we as adults get to think about.
The next question is what do we pay attention to? Are you paying attention to your body? Injuries that you might have, Illnesses that are creeping up on you, your own mental health?
Next are, what do we eliminate? Hopefully we’re eliminating those inherently bad actions that conflict with the bigger goal. So if the goal is to be healthier and ultimately to lose weight, you want to be careful about addictions like smoking and drugs and alcohol that are counter to someone who is healthy.
Next, I want you to think of the lifestyle that you get to have if you’re healthy. Because remember, you’ve probably heard this before. When you’re healthy, you can have lots of wishes, but when you’re not healthy, you only have one.
And so when we’re thinking about a resolution like this, thinking of the rewards that we get out of this is that when we’re healthy, we get to do all sorts of things in life. We get to have very active vacations. We’re playing with grandchildren. We have weekend bike rides or walks or hikes through the woods.
Fewer medications that we need. We get to avoid surgeries, all that downtime. Ultimately, you don’t become a burden on someone to take care of you, and you feel really proud of your appearance and overall happiness, and that sense of fulfillment that you get to have because of your health.
I share this with you because I want you to appreciate that there’s lots of votes that you can cast to move towards your goal, and that’s not to say that we want to make lots of excuses for all the bad votes we cast, but the idea that we get to continue to cast these votes over and over and over and over again every day, that if we cast a couple of not great votes, it’s not the end of the world. We don’t have to give up on our resolution to be a healthier person because we missed a couple of good check-ins.
Of course this is a resolution that everyone’s heard a million times as far as getting healthy, losing weight, that type of thing. I want to bring it around to the retirement aspect of things because of course, that’s the stuff that I focus on here at ProFeds and the substance of the FedImpact podcast that we have.
If we’re thinking about the type of person that we want to identify with, we want to identify with someone who is confident about living a great retirement, not just someone who gets the heck out of the government as soon as they’re eligible, but someone who chooses to live on less than they make.
They’re intentionally living a standard of living so that money can be put away, right? They’re not blowing all of the money that comes in the door. These types of people make good small financial decisions that snowball into great big ones.
Things like creating a spending budget. Maybe you choose to make coffee or breakfast at home instead of grabbing something on your way to work. You choose to go out to lunch one day a week instead of five with your co-workers.
You eliminate that bad debt by paying more than what’s due, right? We know we’re never paying those credit cards off if we don’t pay more than what’s due on them. Things like a pay raise that you’re getting, putting more money into TSP based on how much money you got in that raise.
Setting up an allotment to an emergency savings account that you’re trying to build, right? These don’t have to be massive in and of themselves, they can be little steps along the way that are your votes being cast for the person you want to be.
Next, we want to think about the choices that we’re making. Are we choosing to be a consistent saver? Not waiting until you feel like you have enough money to start saving, right? We’re never going to start saving if we wait to quote, “Have enough money.”
Next is how you prioritize things. Are you prioritizing your financial stability over frivolous spending? Invariably, that likely leaves you unfulfilled. We want to be careful that we’re not blowing money when in reality the big reward is living on less than we make and saving for the future.
Next is pay attention to the opportunity to create a great future for yourself. This reframes that kind of icky feeling of making a sacrifice in a resolution, right? That’s I think why most people give up resolutions. They don’t want to live without the thing that they know they’re not supposed to do.
But if we can think about, well, instead of it feeling like a sacrifice to put more money away in an investment like the TSP or any of the other investments that you might have, to switch that mindset and say, look what I’m able to do. Look what I have the chance to do for myself for later.
Next is eliminating inherently bad actions. If we’re thinking about the financial aspect of life, things like a gambling or a shopping addiction that you might have, those are counterintuitive to the big goal that you have of living a comfortable, confident retirement.
And listen, when we think of the rewards of a retirement where you have plenty of money to live the life that you want, you get to do things like travel and vacation with your family. You give money to charity or whomever you wish.
You get to invest in your child or your grandchild’s business. You have the freedom to spend out and live retirement fully. See your money be put to great use. You feel fulfilled and grateful, right?
That heavier side of retirement is what happens after you’re gone, right? Where we’re thinking about, will my spouse be okay if I die first? I want to leave a lasting impact, a meaningful legacy for my kids or my grandkids.
I hope that when we think about those things, that that gives great joy and peace when you think about it. But there’s lots of rewards at the end. And so if we can keep all of those rewards in mind, it makes the small votes that we get to cast easier to do in the moment.
Therefore, when we think about retirement and the financial aspect of things, I want to talk about this concept that James Clear covers in his book. He talks about the four parts of goal setting, and that is to make the goal obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
Examples
Let’s use a couple of examples just to put some meat to this.
If the goal is to trim your spending by reducing how often you go out to lunch during the week, if we put the obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying lens on this.
- To make it obvious, you put a note by your keys to remember to grab the lunch that you packed the night before.
- To make it attractive, you ensure that your lunch is tasty and something that you’re looking forward to eating.
- To make it easy, listen, because you made it the night before or maybe you even meal prep for the whole week, it’s really easy to grab in the morning and heat up at your office.
- And then to make it satisfying, you’ve eliminated the friction in this process. You remember to pack the delicious meal that was easy to heat up and eat, which makes it easier for you to repeat each day.
And listen, there’s all sorts of goodbye products that come out of this. Because lunch was so fast, you can take a 20-minute walk outside, right? You’ve got some extra time during your lunch hour, and you get to enjoy some fresh air.
So once a week, you decide to still schedule some time to go out with your friends or your coworkers to your favorite restaurant nearby. We can make it really satisfying and not feel like we’re always giving up something, especially something that we really enjoy.
The next idea is create and fund an emergency savings account. So how do we make that obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying?
- To make it obvious, create an account and label it emergency savings account, and make sure it’s visible when you log into your banking app. You’re going to see that money grow and grow and grow and grow every single time that you log into your bank.
- To make it attractive, write down how you’ll feel when you have this account fully funded to the level that you’ve set as your goal. Maybe it’s $1000, 2000, whatever your number is, you’re going to say, you know what? I feel way more confident. I’m less anxious about those things that might happen. The hot water tank that goes out, the issue with my car, whatever it might be, because I’ve got some money set aside to help ease the blow if something like that happens.
- Next, to make it easy, set up an automatic deposit. That might be a bank draft or a government allotment, whatever it might be, and that way it goes into your savings account, every single pay period. You don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to even take any action. You take one action one time, and that money goes over consistently every single pay period.
- And then to make this satisfying, when you reach that target amount, treat yourself to something really enjoyable with the amount of money that you had been setting aside each pay period. Maybe that’s going to get a massage or a round of golf or whatever it is that makes that feel like a really rewarding experience to have met that emergency savings goal.
The next scenario is begin preparing for retirement. This is something that we hear tons of employees at the end of their career say, gosh, I sure wish that I would’ve done this 10 or 20 years ago. It would’ve really made a big difference. But it’s so much harder to get a younger person to really be thinking about retirement in a positive way. And so let’s talk about this idea of preparing for retirement.
- The first thing, we want to make it obvious. What is a specific mark in time that you can be looking forward to getting a kickoff to your retirement planning? I would encourage you, go find one of our workshops. Sign up, you have a moment, a date on the calendar that you can look forward to. We have workshops, hundreds of them all over the country, every year. Please find one that’s close by, make a point to register and be present at that workshop.
- Next, make it attractive. Make a whole list of questions that you want answers to and make sure that your calendar is blocked so there is nothing that distracts you from just focusing on yourself for the day. That will make it feel like a very worthwhile experience where you’ve got your questions, you’re prepared, nobody’s bugging you, and that is your day to focus on yourself and your own future.
- Next, make it easy. At these workshops, you automatically get some one-on-one help, and you are going to have an opportunity to get a free FedImpact report after the workshop. This report helps bring all of your numbers together. It’s great to see examples and stuff like that in the workshop, but what most people want to know is, how does this apply to me? Instead of you having to go back and try to plug in all these numbers and hope that you’re using the right assumptions, you’re able to just sit down for some one-on-one help after the workshop. It doesn’t cost you anything. This is your opportunity to see your numbers really clearly. And then what makes this so satisfying is you have more clarity about the decisions that you can make to improve your lifestyle in retirement. And better yet, you now know a person who’s licensed to provide recommendations on what to do next.
- I would argue the most satisfying part of all of this is that you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. Retirement is too big of a decision to be left to hoping that you thought about all of the things. That you remembered, that you knew what to even look for or ask about.
If you’re working with people who have helped many federal employees retire and do so confidently, that will increase your confidence and make you feel even better about the work that you’re doing to prepare yourself for that ultimate time that you get to stop working for the federal government and go enjoy the rest of your life.
And by breaking down these really big goals to make them really obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying, you will have a great chance to build momentum and confidence that you can keep that cycle going.
Remember, every decision that we make for these goals is a vote for the kind of person that we want to be. We have a chance to keep casting those votes over and over and over again to get the retirement that we want, to lose the 50 pounds, to be a healthier person, to fill in the blank, whatever that resolution might be for you.
Are You Ready To Retire With Confidence?
If you happen to be listening to this podcast right on our website, of course, you can go right to the show notes to be able to get the resources to James Clear Atomic Habits book. Amazing read or listen. I highly encourage it. He’s got a lot of really great examples in the book that are very relatable.
The link to all of the workshops that we are hosting throughout the country, you will have the opportunity to be able to click right on the show notes to be able to do that.
If you happen to be listening through a normal podcast platform, iTunes, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, whatever that might be, you can text the word podcast to 224-444-6144, and we will send that right away. You’ll have a link directly to the show notes to be able to get all the tools and resources. Again, text the word podcast to 224-444-6144, and we will get that out right away.
If you need some help, some financial coaching, if you will, please get help. Don’t step into retirement with regret, looking back and saying, all those resolutions I made all those goals that I had to really live a great retirement, I wish I’d have just asked for some help so that I wasn’t doing this on my own.
You owe it to yourself to get some legitimate help from a pro. We are happy to introduce you to a financial professional who specializes with working with federal employees. It’s easy to do. You’ll answer a few questions, so we’ll know who to link you up with in your area. To do that, again, you can text the word podcast to 224-444-6144, and we promise we will take very good care of you and get you linked up right away.
Wrap-Up
Some things to remember about quitting those New Year’s resolutions so that you can actually get what you want. Make those new habits obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying, because making new habits can be really tough. You can tip the odds in your favor by making those habits easier to follow. Again, obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
The next thing that I’ll ask you to kind of bring to the forefront of your mind is focusing more on the system. If we’re going to use a game mentality, the scoreboard that I mentioned earlier, the idea that when you’re in practice, you’re going through the reps, you’re getting in the touches, you’re practicing all of the things that you need to do to be able to win the game, that’s the system. Focus more on that than on that giant goal that you might abandon two weeks into the new year.
We want to keep those incremental progress steps in the right direction and gain that momentum to keep the cycle going because you feel like you continue to win and win and win. And those small incremental changes are often underrated, but it is the key to mastering our New Year’s resolutions for good.
The last thing that I’ll share with you is just a reminder that we get to cast votes for the type of people that we want to be. And just because we don’t cast all the votes in that way all of the time, doesn’t mean we’re not still making great progress.
I hope that Quitters Day has come and gone for you, and that you decide that even if it’s not perfect, you’re going to keep casting votes for the person that you want to be.
That’s it for today. I hope that you’ll stay tuned to the FedImpact podcast to get straight answers and candid insights on your federal retirement. And if you haven’t already, subscribe today so you’re sure not to miss an episode. We’ll see you next time.
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