Are New Year's Resolutions Really Necessary?

Are New Year Resolutions really necessary?

Some say yes. Some say no. Some don’t care.

I’m laughing as I write this because the second Friday of January passed last week—the unofficial day when people who once sort of committed to New Year’s resolutions quietly let them go.

Why am I laughing? Because it was fifty years ago that I first got serious about goal setting—often confused with resolutions. It wasn’t January. It wasn’t symbolic. It was a fall day when I sat in an all-day conference designed to inspire and motivate thousands of people to think differently about their lives.

And I took that day seriously—probably more seriously than it deserved. I didn’t know then that the thousands of people in that room were all hearing the same speakers through completely different filters. It didn’t take me long to figure out what some of my filters were: my personality, my ADHD, my introverted tendencies, being adopted, growing up in Brooklyn and on the East Coast, being married with two kids, and my impressive lack of musical or athletic coordination.

Add in a life devoted to teaching and coaching, and suddenly it made sense—whatever I became was always going to sound like me, move like me, and probably trip over itself once in a while too.

That day left me with three ideas that never really let go of me:
• One, only a small slice of people—maybe three percent—take goal setting seriously.
• Two, real goal setting isn’t about one thing, but about many parts of life.
• And three, I should never take myself too seriously.

Not because I lacked confidence, but because my brain never shuts up—always inventing, imagining, planning—and if that made me part of the three percent they talked about that day, I was going to enjoy the membership.

As teaching and coaching filled my life, I tried to give those ideas a shape people could see. I started teaching, in classrooms and small groups, the idea of picturing life as ten balloons—each one an area of living—and we get to decide how much air goes into each balloon. Some get fuller. Some stay small. And sometimes, just by living, one of them pops.

The more I paid attention to my own balloons, the more awake I felt. Not impressive—just awake. I noticed that most of the choices I made weren’t really about me anyway; they were about the people who happened to be near me—what the people at the conference called my sphere of influence. And somewhere along the way I realized I was wired for caring, giving, sharing, teaching, and coaching. Not heroically—just naturally. And one day I made a quiet promise to myself.

I wasn’t going to try to change the world.

I didn’t want a legacy, a spotlight, or a headline. I just wanted to look for the three percent—the people who were already paying attention to their balloons—and share what I’d stumbled into. Not as an expert. Not as someone to follow. Just as a regular person with no trophies, no dazzling résumé, no big money, and no special wisdom—just a life that kept handing me things worth passing along.

And that idea kept growing. I met all kinds of people—some I admired, some I didn’t; some I wanted to be like, some I didn’t—and each one quietly shaped how I saw myself.

That journey forced me to look inward. I realized I’m a risk-taker by nature, probably wired that way since my paper route and selling garden seeds door-to-door in the 1950s. But more than that, I discovered what really fascinates me: helping people become more interesting—and more interested—by widening their world, physically, mentally, and socially.

In my years of teaching and coaching, people often asked which of the Ten Balloons mattered most. Which one should they fill? Which one should they let shrink a little? I never had a clean answer. All I could ever say was, It depends.

It depends on the season you’re in.
It depends on the people around you.
It depends on what your life is asking of you right now.

It probably sounded like I was dodging the question, but the truth was I was still working it out in my own life. What once felt urgent sometimes faded. What once felt small sometimes grew.

I usually tell my running story to explain it.

For a season, I was a running coach and a road-running enthusiast. Sherri and the kids would travel with me to races in cities all over. One day Sherri said, kindly and clearly, that she loved being there, loved cheering, loved holding my sweat suit at the finish line—but she had no interest in running a marathon. Not soon. Not later. Probably not ever.

And that was the day it clicked for me. Some balloons matter deeply to me. They don’t have to matter to everyone. Owning that—without trying to sell it or defend it—made me better. Not faster. Not wiser. Just more honest about what fits me, and what doesn’t have to fit anyone else.

And so, whether it was New Year’s resolutions or goal setting, I knew my life would probably land somewhere on the Road Less Traveled—which meant I had to look at some of my balloons and just laugh.

Take hobbies. For some people, that means sports—playing them, watching them, planning life around them. I tried. But when the Brooklyn Dodgers left New York, they also took a piece of my childhood with them—Ebbets Field, hot dogs, and the idea that teams were loyal. Later, I sat in Yankee Stadium and watched Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle chase history. That should have sealed the deal. It didn’t.

Then I moved to Ohio, where choosing between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns can determine your social life. I learned that allegiance matters. I also learned that mine just isn’t very strong. Professional sports became something I respect deeply in other people. If you love a team, I’ll cheer with you, complain about the refs, and celebrate the win. I just won’t build my future around it.

Politics turned out much the same. One day I looked myself up online and discovered I’d been labeled as belonging to a party I never joined. I was briefly offended—almost called someone official and indignant—then remembered I’ve always voted more for people and issues than banners. Friends have tried to recruit me for years. I disappoint them regularly. That balloon doesn’t get much air either.

Another area is faith. Although I grew up in one tradition, we’ve been part of several denominations over the years. I thought I had a pretty good grip on what faith looked like—until a sixteen-year-old girl quietly taught me more about faith and the Ten Balloons than anyone ever had.

I was coaching a group of Student Ambassadors at a career center, helping them prepare to visit local high schools and talk about the courses offered there. One day at lunch, I told her I had a question. I asked why, in all our time working together, she had never once suggested that I—or anyone else—consider joining her denomination, which was very different from my own background.

She smiled and said, “It’s simple, Coach. My dad taught me that I never need to worry about learning how to share my faith through speeches or testimonies. He always told me to worry about my actions. If people see something different in me, they’ll ask. And then I can tell them what they want to know.”

Those words, spoken twenty years ago, still feel fresh. They landed hard—in the best way. They reminded me that how I live matters more than how I explain how I live. And suddenly, the Ten Balloons made even more sense.

So why do I still set goals? Why do I keep talking about the Ten Balloons? Why do I write essays about them? Why do I invite people to join me in the pursuit of their own goals?

It’s simple. I like being around interesting people—people who are different from me, people who shine in areas I don’t, people I can learn from just by watching how they live.

And I like being around interested people—people who have a life beyond themselves, who are curious about new ideas, new beliefs, new ways of living.

That’s what New Year’s resolutions and goal setting offer me—not a system, not a sermon, but a pause. Time to dream. Time to notice. Time to celebrate what’s working, let go of what isn’t, and maybe—just one balloon at a time—decide whether it’s time to add some air, let some out, or finally, gently, let it pop.

And luckily, I don’t live by the world’s standard of the second Friday in January.