Last year, for instance, my goal was to explore the United States by motorhome. (I just posted a trip summary<\/a> at my personal blog, by the way.) In 2014, my aim was to publish and publicize the Get Rich Slowly course.<\/p>\n Here’s a more relatable example: In 2010, I focused on fitness. I wanted to lose fifty pounds, so I tried to weigh every decision with that one goal in mind. You know what? It worked. I didn’t lose fifty pounds that year, but I did<\/em> lose forty. I lost the rest by the middle of 2011 and was the fittest I’d ever been in my life.<\/p>\n The main reason I was able to do this was that fitness was my only<\/i> goal for 2010.<\/b> Nothing else mattered. I didn’t have other objectives clouding my view. I set one goal, and I worked hard to meet it. I picked the one thing in my life that most needed change, and I committed to changing it.<\/p>\n Turns out I’m not the only one to champion the “one goal at a time” approach. The magic of single-tasking is well known. For example, my friend and trainer Cody once wrote:<\/p>\n One of the teaching skills that is developed in good coaches is the concept of \u201cone fault, one correction\u201d. The idea is to take the most important correction needed and just focus on that one thing<\/b>. Attack it from different angles if needed, but be tenacious on correcting the biggest fault only. Once that has been achieved, the Coach and Athlete can move on to the next biggest fault, then the next and so on, in a never-ending journey toward excellence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Cody says that by focusing on one thing at a time, you can:<\/p>\n Cody puts this philosophy into practice every day in the gym. He uses it when coaching me on squats, for example. When I started at his gym, my form was awful. I couldn’t do an actual squat \u2014 not even without weight. By correcting one thing at a time, I made great progress. (At my peak, I could backsquat 245 pounds, which was 150% of my body weight!)<\/p>\n This same “one problem, one correction” principle applies to meeting other goals \u2014 including financial goals and New Year’s resolutions.<\/p>\n As you all know, I’m a big believer in the power of goals. That’s why the very first step of the Money Boss method is to create a personal mission statement<\/a> from which you can derive secondary goals. By setting and pursuing big goals, I’ve accomplished more than I ever thought possible. And I believe that you<\/em> should set and achieve big goals, too.<\/p>\n Based on everything I’ve learned about goal-setting over the past decade, here’s how to set New Year’s resolutions you’ll actually keep:<\/p>\n There’s one last key to meeting your goals or keeping your resolutions: To succeed, you must do the work.<\/strong> You can’t just talk about what you want to do; you have to actually do<\/em> it.<\/p>\n Back when I worked at the family box company<\/a>, my cousin Nick and I had lots of philosophical discussions. On more than one occasion, I’d be lamenting that X was a priority in my life \u2014 where X could be exercise or getting out of debt or reading more books \u2014 but that I never seemed to have time for it. Instead, I did a bunch of other stuff.<\/p>\n Nick would always tell me, “Then X isn’t a priority.” If I tried to argue, he’d point out that the things we actually do<\/em> are the priorities in our life. What we say doesn’t matter; it’s what we do<\/em> that counts.<\/strong><\/p>\n It took me a long time to learn this lesson. I used to be what I call a Talker: I talked about all the things I wanted to do, and I felt like I had the solutions to everything, but I never actually took action. I was full of hot air.<\/p>\n Somehow, I’ve turned into a Doer. Most of the time, I get things done. Instead of lamenting about the man I want to be<\/a>, I’m working hard to be<\/em> that man. I’ve built a new life out of doing the things I used to only talk about before. (Note that I’m not always<\/em> a Doer. I still spend plenty of time Talking, but my ratio of action to words has increased in recent years.)<\/p>\n In his notes on The Last Tycoon<\/em>, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Action is character.” Fitzgerald meant that what a fictional character does defines who that character is in the reader\u2019s mind. The same is true in real life: If you never did anything, you wouldn\u2019t be anybody.<\/strong> You are defined by the things you do \u2013 not the things you think and say.<\/p>\n To up it another way, we are what we repeatedly do<\/strong>. (This is Will Durant’s interpretation of an idea from Aristotle, though many people mistakenly attribute it to the latter<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Action is character. We are what we repeatedly do.<\/p>\n If you want to make your New Year’s Resolution stick, you have to do the work. Doing the work creates a virtuous cycle<\/a> that makes it easier to keep<\/em> doing the work. And doing the work shows the world (and yourself) who you really are.<\/p>\n![\"[Weight](\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/weight-loss-progress.jpg\" "\\"That's")
<\/p>\n<\/span>One Problem, One Correction<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>How to Set Resolutions You’ll Actually Keep<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Action is Character<\/span><\/h2>\n
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