Are New Year’s resolutions even worth making when all too often they are mocked as something a person will only stick with until February? If you are tired of setting out with good intentions to develop a new habit but failing to stick with it long-term, consider making a reverse resolution this year.
A reverse resolution basically focuses on a habit or practice you will choose to stop doing, rather than an aspirational goal you want to start doing at the beginning of the year.
Why Reverse Resolutions Work Better than Traditional Resolutions?
Often, New Year’s resolutions are idealistic, with not a lot of support or thought behind how you will reach said goals. Meanwhile, a reverse resolution gives you a chance to formalize some of the things you already know aren’t working and finally draw a line in the sand and say ‘No more.’
Chances are you already know what is draining your profits, company morale or time. Choosing to remove a stressor can be far easier than adding another initiative to your team’s full plate.
Reviewing what you need to stop doing can provide consistency for your crews, free up bandwidth for your leaders and clarify your priorities.
Identifying the Right Reverse Resolution for Your Company
Just like how SMART goals need to be specific, your reverse resolutions can’t be vague complaints.
Ask yourself and your team questions around your operations, sales, clients, culture and leadership to help identify areas that may need a reverse resolution. For instance, what’s a job type you keep saying ‘we’ll never do that again’ but keep doing?
What services do you have the lowest margins for or the highest callbacks for? If clients are constantly upset and expect zero weeds in their yards, maybe you need to review your messaging and stop assuming they understand the realities of lawn care and realistic weed control standards.
Other questions to ask are what promises you keep making that strain operations, and where you routinely underprice.
Internally, you can review what behaviors you tolerate that hurt your accountability or what processes rely on tribal knowledge versus documented SOPs. These are instances where you have to stop accepting poor performance and counting on long-term employees alone to pass on their knowledge.
Also consider what meetings exist because you’ve always done it that way and what leadership decisions are being made emotionally rather than based on data.
Strong reverse resolutions are specific, actionable and measurable. Below are some examples:
- Stop saying “yes” to clients who consistently delay payment.
- Stop chasing every lead instead of qualifying upfront.
- Stop accepting projects outside our geographic service radius.
- Stop onboarding without clear expectations and benchmarks.
- Stop allowing inconsistent enforcement of policies.
Meanwhile, weak reverse resolutions are too vague to act on and don’t address root causes. Avoid using any that sound like these examples:
- Stop wasting time.
- Stop communicating poorly.
- Stop taking stressful jobs.
Turning Reverse Resolutions into Action
While reverse resolutions should be easier to implement, you still need to identify who on your team is accountable to ensure these changes are made.
Define what ‘stopped’ looks like for certain resolutions and set checkpoints throughout the year to see if a bad habit has returned. In some cases, what you choose to stop doing will require you to start doing something in its place, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
At the end of the day, resolutions in general are all about reflecting on where you currently are and what practices you need to implement to get you to where you want to be.
