Kevin Beaver's Security Blog

Resolutions are for Losers

It’s been proven – and most of us have experienced the fact that – that New Year’s resolutions don’t work. We say we’re going to do this or stop doing that and it may seem to work for a week or maybe a month but, interestingly, we always seem to get back to our same old ways.

Take your local gym for instance. The next time you drive by (or visit) your local gym notice how crowded the parking lot is this time of year. With near 100% certainty I can say that it’ll be packed. Why is this? Well, it’s all those people who have made New Year’s resolutions to “work out more” and “lose weight”. Give it a month or two and watch the transformation. Your gym parking lot will be less and less crowed and by mid to late Spring it’ll be back to “normal”.

This is because resolutions don’t work. Resolutions are merely wishes and empty promises to yourself. Period. Be it your personal life or your career the only sustainable way to move ahead from where you’re currently at in life – and, most importantly, stay ahead – is to develop a sound set of goals for each area of your life, outline how you’re going to go about accomplishing each goal, set deadlines, and hold yourself accountable. It’s as “simple” as that. Here’s a bit I wrote on this subject that tells you exactly what you need to do:

Eight steps to accomplishing your IT career goals

…You may also be interested in my Security On Wheels audio programs specifically Getting Started in Security and the forthcoming Succeeding in Security where I cover goals and much much more about what it takes to get ahead and stay ahead year after year…no resolutions need. Even if you’re more of an IT generalist these audio programs are chock full of goodies you can benefit from.

Here’s to an excellent 2010!!