It happens to the best of us. We have good intentions, but then we fail to follow through on them. 

We forget. We get busy. We worry. And then we miss it. We get to the end of the summer, the end of the year, or the end of our lives, and we realize that we spent a lot of time on things we didn’t really care about and not enough time on the things that were really important to us. We want to end up with a lot of great memories, but what we actually end up with is a lot of regrets. 

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When setting goals for the New Year, it can be tempting to aim really high.

There’s something about the fresh start of a new calendar that makes us feel like we can become entirely new people. We think about all the things that are possible and want to do them all.

But thinking about what’s possible to do is not always the best way to set a goal.

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Gratitude is deeper than a feeling

Thanksgiving. A day for turkey and mashed potatoes, football and family. A day when we pause and think about what we’re grateful for—the roof over our head, the food on our table, and the loved ones sitting around it.

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Starting new things can be hard.

One reason it’s hard to start new things is that it’s hard to give up on the old things. We worry that if we give up on something—whether it’s a job or a relationship or a hobby or a business venture—then all the time, money, effort, and emotional energy we put into it will be wasted.

The desire to avoid waste can be helpful if it leads us to be mindful of how we invest our time, money, effort, and emotional energy. The problem is when we overgeneralize our desire to avoid waste by trying to recover costs that can’t be recovered. Economists refer to these as sunk costs—costs you’ve already incurred that you can’t get back.

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