I don't know how many people share the level of cynicism I hold for New Year's Resolutions... If you're one of those people who sets ambitious goals for the new year and then smashes them, amazing. But you're certainly an anomaly.

According to one article by Psychology Today, approximately 80% of people abandon their New Year's Resolutions within the month of January and, frankly, I'm not surprised. Whether it's because these goals are too black and white - I will run 5 km every day (vs. not at all) - or because they're too vague - I want to be healthy - or too unrealistic - I'll become Stephen King and write 2,000 words a day - they just often don't work out. But there is a way to circumvent this depressing reality and it's called the MTO method.

The MTO technique breaks goals down into three levels:

The minimum is what you can be expected to achieve based on past performance, not your past ambitions. So, if I know I can be counted on to write 200 words a week because I've managed that for the past three weeks, then that would be my minimum.

Target is a "stretch" - something just beyond your minimum. So, based on the previous example, this would be me writing 350 words a week.

Outrageous is what it sounds like - a totally ludicrous idea, what you might call a "moonshot" idea. This is a goal "you know you cannot achieve". So, let's say 2,000 words a week.

Put simply, using the MTO method gives you three ways to achieve your goals and if you achieve any one of the three, you can safely say you haven't failed. So, if I write 200 words in a month, I've done the minimum but I've still written. If I write 350, it's a stretch that I can be proud of, and if I write 2,000, I can be really chuffed. Or, to give another example, instead of saying, "I will go to the gym every day in 2025," how about breaking it down like this:

Knowing that I haven't automatically failed because I didn't make it to the outrageous goal is already a mind shift and with the encouraging thought that, even if I only go to the gym on Tuesday, I'll still be reaching a goal, I can go forward into the next week with a sense of hope and achievement rather than shame for not being perfect. After all, New Year's Resolutions aren't about achieving perfection, but progress, and perfectionism is the chief enemy of progress.

While resolutions are typically tied to personal improvement, if you run a business, then business success and personal success go hand in hand. And while I can't say they're exactly the same, I still think the MTO method can be applied. Think of that big moonshot idea you have, say "In 2025, I want to 10x my revenue." That's a fantastically terrifying goal - an overwhelming goal. So, let's reverse engineer this and make that the Outrageous goal.

The next step is to find the Target - something that will be challenging to reach but not impossible. So, perhaps you managed to increase your sales by 20% between 2023 and 2024. Maybe, your target could be to increase them by 30% in 2025. And your minimum - increase them by 20%. After all, you've done it before.

With these goals in mind, you can begin to plan to grow your revenue by at least 20%. Perhaps this will entail new marketing campaigns, paid ads, additional hires of sales people, more cold calling, more conferences, a new product line... All that can be planned. Then, if you work really hard, you know you can at least reach 20% and with a bit of luck and gumption, perhaps you can reach target, or even go beyond.

The thing I really don't like about New Year's resolutions is not that people are trying to improve themselves or their businesses; it's that they think that improvement is synonymous with wholesale change.

As someone who's particularly prone to self-criticism, I'm all too familiar with this mind-trap and I think it's time we left it in the past. Instead of "New year, new me", how about "New year, new mindset"? By using the MTO technique, we can find ways to improve our performance, health and lives without introducing despondency or shame. In this way, we are far more likely to succeed and even exceed our expectations.