Reassessing & Reworking Resolutions

Time flies when you’re knocking out resolutions. Are you on track? Have you stopped tracking due to the current economic climate? Don’t wait until the end of the year to reassess your personal and professional plans. 

In this episode of the Spark Factor, Torri Silver and Dr. Monique Major reassess New Year’s resolutions. Dr. Major discusses the importance of self-awareness in the goal setting process. She shares how to achieve meaningful and realistic goals. Dr. Major also sheds light on what to do when you feel defeated. Tune in! You will gain effective strategies to reassess and rework your resolutions!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Spark Room with Tori Silver, where conversations ignite new ideas, spark new energy, and fuel momentum in the workplace. Question for our listeners. Have you said 2026 is going to be my year? I'm going to live life to the fullest, learn a new skill, land my dream job, or maybe become your own CEO. How are you doing? Have you taken action? Or are those goals or New Year's resolutions getting dusty on your shelf? Perhaps you have committed to doing the work and you're not necessarily seeing a return on your efforts. We're going to revisit and reassess New Year's resolutions and provide insights, really, really good insights on how to make them stick. I'm joined by expert psychologists who will break all this down. Dr. Monique Major is a senior lecturer at Howard University in the psychology department. She's also a faculty fellow with the Georgetown Howard Center for Medical Humanities and Health Justice. Dr. Major is a three, three-time graduate of the Howard University with a bachelor's in psychology, a master's, and a PhD in personality psychology. Hey Chew! You know? You know! Folks, let's welcome my bison sister into the Sparkroom. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yes, I'm so excited to get an expert to talk a bit about New Year's resolutions and the psychology around resolutions. So let's go a little bit back. So late last year, everyone decided to document their New Year's resolutions, be it personal or professional goals. And now we are at the end of the first quarter, and we may be a little bit challenged due to, you know, lack of seeing any results, or that we ourselves have sort of taken a step back and not really executed. Talk a bit about why you think folks have challenges with New Year's resolutions.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

So I think that's a great question. Um and I think it's a wonderful time to ask that question. Like you said, we're we're at the end of quarter one, we're thinking about we're we're in quarter two. So we wrapped up quarter one. So we may have seen that we were able to achieve some goals, not necessarily able to achieve others. And so I think when we think about behavior change, because New Year's resolutions, if we boil it down, boil it down to the basics, it's about changing some behavior in a way. So if we think about it, we the reality is when it comes to behavior change, we may not be ready for it, right? And I think that's the hard part. I think New Year's Eve and New Year's Day marks a wonderful time for us to think about a transition. Some psychologists call it the fresh start effect. We think like it's a new year, so like I'm ready for this new, new experience, but perhaps you aren't, right? And I think that's a hard reality for some of us to sit with. That doesn't mean that you will never be ready for that behavior change, but it just might be that the circumstances that you're in right now may not necessarily be the best for you to make this particular transition. So I think that's one element. I think sometimes we get in our own way, right? So when we're making this change, so we might say to ourselves, I'm gonna cook dinner every night for a month, a fresh dinner, right? And a few nights into it, we're like, this is really hard. I don't know if I'm built for this, right? So instead of continuing, we say, you know what, I'm not doing this anymore. So we just kind of surrender in the face of an adversity or in the face of a particular challenge. Um, also, sometimes we just avoid things. We, if we go back to that idea that we may not be ready, if we're not ready, then we're less likely to confront it. We're less likely to be able to say, I can move through this particular challenge if a challenge arises. Some other um reasons why we may not be able to move through a goal or achieve a goal or sustain a goal is sometimes they're too complex or too layered. So the whole idea of cooking dinner every night for a month, that's really ambitious. Especially if you like work nine to five, if you have other responsibilities, let's say you're a coach for a little league or you're a track coach, you may not have the time in your day to take a break and to buy fresh groceries and cook this wonderful meal every night. So we may have to think about how we can adjust that particular goal to make it a little bit more realistic. And then I think sometimes when it comes to goals, we're not being true to ourselves, right? So we say, I want to make this change because I may have seen it, you know, I may see a friend doing it. Well, they might be doing it because they have this authentic desire, but do we really want to do that? Or do we just see them doing it and we may want to do it because they're doing it? And I think the last thing when it comes to New Year's resolutions is keeping in mind that there's a distinction between having the idea or having the goal and then maintaining it. So it's one thing to say, I have this New Year's resolution. It's another thing to say, do I have a plan for maintaining what it looks like to upkeep this goal for whatever the time period is.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

You touched on a lot of really valid points about individual behaviors and the mindset. Um, sometimes we're too ambitious. And that speaks to um your expertise around psychology. I think that for me, someone who's been probably setting goals probably since high school, then in college, and then in my professional life, I don't even, and I had one psychology class at Howard, I don't even think, right, that we think about the fact that New Year's resolutions are tied to the field or discipline of psychology. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

There's definitely a connection. I think, you know, you get into the history of New Year's resolutions, and it's a really fascinating history. As I was getting ready for this interview, I was doing a little more digging. Um, it's a really fascinating history about how they have shifted over time and how once upon a time they didn't exist. Like it wasn't a thing to say, I have a New Year's resolution. Um, I think if you dig into the history, particularly when it comes to folks who were enslaved due to the transatlantic slave trade, it wasn't always a time of celebration, right? So if we think about for on New Year's Eve, some folks, for them, it may have been a day where they found out that their families may be separated or broken up. And so on New Year's Day, a family member themselves, their children may end up getting rented out to other people because the enslaver had a debt. So if we think about like, and that's not that long ago, if we think about a historical perspective, even in other cultures, New Year's Day was more of just a celebration. It wasn't necessarily about developing new goals or having new ideas. So I think when it comes to the psychology of it, we really have to understand like the historical and the social context as well. When I did an interview earlier this year, we talked a lot about how social media really impacts New Year's resolutions and how some people are kind of moving away from them as we think about as we think about um them in general.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Awesome. Talk about um, in terms of having really good, actionable steps and then making them more meaningful for an individual. Um, you know, where should you start if you um, you know, especially from year to year, sometimes we may have some of the same goals that we document, right? Or we have a goal that we may not have um executed the previous year, maybe, you know, with a fresh, clean slate. Talk a bit about how to make them more meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

So I think making them more meaningful start starts with uh making them authentic. So is this an authentic goal that aligns with you? Um, but then also once you're like, yes, I know that I want to start a business in 2026, then you say to yourself, okay, so what's my plan? I have this super, we would call a super ordinary goal, this higher level goal. But then what are the sub-goals that go along with helping me to get to start a business? So depending on where you are, you're gonna need certain legal paperwork, you're going to make sure you have a bank account set up, you're gonna make sure that you have an accountant. So you think about all of these other elements and all of these other goals that go along with that larger goal, and then you have a plan for how you're going to achieve them. So if I need to have a bank account set up, then I say to myself, within a week, I'm gonna go to the bank and I'm gonna establish that bank account. You say to yourself, okay, the next part is to make sure that my LLC paperwork is submitted. I'm gonna give myself two weeks. So you have a plan that lines up with your goal. But then I think another one of my favorite parts of psychology or another part of psychology that's pretty interesting is you make sure you have a reward system. So it's not just that you, you know, you went to the bank. Maybe you say, okay, I'm going to the bank, I'm opening the account, I am going to take myself out for ice cream now that I've achieved this part of the goal, right? Now that might conflict with another New Year's resolution, but you should reward yourself along the way. Some research also talks about monitoring and tracking, right? So if the goal is to open this business, write it down. I love my mom because she, I love her for a lot of reasons. But I love her because at the end of the day, she'll go to her journal, her diary, her calendar, excuse me, and she'll write down all the things that she did that day. So now she's able to go back and see, like, okay, well, on this day, I did this particular thing, I had this meeting, we talked about this. But what she's doing is she's tracking her progress too. And I think that's something that we have to keep in mind when we're thinking about how can we sustain or maintain a goal. Um, some other elements, let me think. Um, making it a habit. And I think that's an interesting one. So the psychology, right? So if we know that I need to, let's say I want to run every morning. That's my goal. Make it so that when your body is in a particular context, it knows it's time to run. So that alarm goes off at 7 a.m. You get up, your sneakers are always in the same place, your watch is in the right place, your water bottle is ready. So then it becomes a habit. When you're in this context, your body knows 7 a.m. is not for scrolling. It's not for, you know, chit-chatting on the phone, it's for getting up and getting active for whatever the particular goal is.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

I love it that you have so many um different steps that you documented because I know we've always been told by um a career coach, motivational speakers to have a journal. And this just to be able to map this back to some of those activities that we've been doing for a long time, because we we tend to journal our emotions or maybe what happens in our day, but not necessarily daily are we feeding um that journal with some of the our many success stories that we um we have that we want to celebrate, as you said, and having that reward system.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yes, yes, it's so important. I mean, why not? We we like you say we use it for other things, we use it to write down the goals. Why not write down how we're moving closer to those goals? And then I think then another beautiful thing about the journals is it allows us to think about what happens when it doesn't work out. So if we say I'm gonna go to the bank, you know, by the end of this week, you can also look back at your journal. You don't, you may not make it there. You can look back at your journal and say, well, maybe I wasn't able to make it to the bank this week because my kid got sick and I had to take care of them. I had this big project at my main job while I'm working on my side job. I had this big project and all of these other factors impacted my ability to get there. And so one of the one piece of research around like maintaining goals is do you have a plan for getting back on track? And I think that's the part that we don't always think about. Like we say, okay, I have a plan for if everything works out perfectly, but that's not how life works. Like that's the reality. So have we also thought about like what's going to be our action plan? And do I believe in myself enough to be able to activate that action plan to get back on track if something goes wrong?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

That sort of tees up the next section around um when things don't go as we planned. You've got people who are um star players, there's, you know, they are self-starters motivated um individuals, and they're either in this economy climate that we're in now, either looking for their new opportunity, whether they're in their organization, trying to escape a layoff, or perhaps they've already been laid off in this pay laid off, laid off rather in this past year. Um talk a bit about the person who um, you know, again, late last year, at the top of this year, has been, you know, really, really beating the virtual um pavement, looking for opportunities, sprucing up that resume, practicing um interviews. They're putting in the work, they're really executing on these action plans, really, really good, solid action plans, but they're not seeing the results. And so then sometimes what happens is the psychology of it, when we don't see the results, we feel incredibly defeated, right? And just maybe saying, you know what, I'm just gonna give up.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's valid. We're human, right? And so disappointment is a valid part of life. One of the things that my therapist often talks about is giving ourselves space to grieve. And it might seem a little silly to say, well, why would I grieve a job? Well, you absolutely should grieve a job. Like if this was an important part of your life, and for many of us, our jobs are, it's helping us pay our bills, it's helping us maybe get access to other people. You know, so we should grieve that. And I think in the pursuit of trying to find something else, grieving what was, and then grieving the fact that the environment or the space that you're in right now is not working out the way that you thought it was going to. Right. So I think especially folks of a certain generation, we're raised to like you work hard and it's gonna work out.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

In this world, that that is not necessarily how it's working out. And so I think the first step is to grieve and then give yourself grace. Give yourself grace for the fact that you're doing all that you can. It may not be working out the way that you want it to, but you can keep going when you have the energy to. So you may need to, if you're applying for 15 jobs a day, you might need to have a boundary around it. So when you get to the end of the day, you say, by five o'clock, I'm gonna take a break, I'm gonna do something else, I'm gonna walk my dog, I'm gonna hang out with my girlfriends. So, yes, it's an important part, and you're holding space for it in your day, but you're not letting it consume your day. Because even when you're working, you you shouldn't be working 24 hours a day. You know what I mean? So you give yourself some boundaries. And I think the last part that I'll say about this is keep in mind the context, right? So we don't exist in bubbles. I think that old idea of like rugged individualism, like I can just make it pick myself up by my bootstraps, that doesn't work, right? We don't live in isolated environments. The economy is really hard. There are a lot of things that are taking place that are outside of our control. And so I think having that context in mind will also impact um what how we can navigate these spaces. And then the other part that I'll say, I I know I said the last part was the last one, but this also is something to keep in mind too, is to think, be creative. So you're saying to yourself, you know, I need a job. Are you talking to different people in your network? Are you, they talk about networking, you know, going to mentors, but are you also talking laterally? Like one of the most beautiful things about going to Howard, I'm certain it's other HBCUs and other universities as well, is when you see somebody else that went to Howard, you uh you kind of know that if you talk to them, something might, you know, you know. And so when I tell my students and they're looking for, I'm like, go on LinkedIn, make sure that you have your Howard grad. If you see someone else's Howard grad, talk to them. It may not always work out, but I think there's there's community. And so when we're thinking about how we can navigate these spaces, don't be afraid to use your networks and use your community to help you make that next step. And also it might be a chance for you to go down a different path. Maybe you took yourself your whole life, you know, I want to be a chef, but coming out of undergrad, your folks are like, you need to get a job that's gonna pay X amount of money. And so you did that, but you've always kind of kept cooking in your back pocket. And now maybe it's time for you to explore that as another option while you're pursuing and you know, the job and finance or whatever it is, or if you're if it if your circumstances allow you to, perhaps going down that path fully, maybe what you need to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

I love that um talking a bit about it's okay to grieve. Um, we grieve the loss of family, of friends. Um, but I think that um, and I'll say this in in terms of my career and having worked in two careers. I think that when you are in a situation where you're in transition and you could have left a job that you absolutely love, um, or you could have been laid off, um, it is sometimes frowned upon for you to grieve over a job. It's like, girl, please, that's a job. Like, you can get another job. Girl, please get over yourself. Go somewhere and get a job, go somewhere and read a book. But you're right, right? This is and some, and I'll say this too, based on your your industry and what you do, some people, their identities, right, are wrapped around their job. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So I I really appreciate that. And I know that listeners are gonna appreciate appreciate that too, of just knowing that um give yourself some grace and it is okay to mourn the loss of your job. I know that some individuals, so many folks, are looking for their next opportunity, and you sit and you say, you know, I've been laid off, I'm looking for something else, why me? And then it becomes, after a long period of time, people move on. They're not gonna call and check in on you, right? Like, and again, it's the whole, it's been two months, it's been six months, you need to move on with your life. So it's, you know, you want to give yourself that space and grace to sort of mourn and then also be able to identify the next steps.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I, you know, it's been I'm always torn when it comes to social media because I do think that we consume too much on social media, but I do also think that it can be a place for community. I've seen people posting on threads, like, I've been applying for eight months and I finally got a job. Or, you know, uh other people who are trying to transition, maybe become writers more. They're like, today I wrote, I wrote today, I wrote today, I wrote today. People are like, good job, you wrote. So, like this social media community is like rallying around people to help them as they're navigating this space. So I think that can be another resource too.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

I love it. Talk a bit about, and I know you share this too with the Howard students, and you're um teaching them about the importance of um reaching out to their network on LinkedIn. Talk a bit about the importance of leveraging your own personal and professional networks. And, you know, um, a lot of times you have individuals, like you said, based on a certain generation, they are they are self-starters and want to do things on their own. But share a bit about why it's important to seek help from people that you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So I think, you know, that Gwendolyn Brooks um quote from one of her poems, uh, we got each other's harvest. That always comes to mind. So we're in this together. We're we're we go, what is the other um uh proverb that if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. So I think with both of those kind of in mind, we can just do more when we work together as a group of people. Now, that, you know, I'm not naive and I don't think that everyone is committed to community growth, but I think you can figure out and you spend time with people and you can know, you start to figure out, okay, this person is about the well-being of us. So let me talk to this person. I have mentors that I can call any time of day, and I'm like, hey, listen, I have a question about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they'll answer. I have others, I can't necessarily call them, but I can email them, I can go to their office, right? So you have to also know like who is in your who is in your network and what kind of support they can provide. If you need help with finances, you probably aren't gonna go to your friend that's a baker to give you expert advice about a Roth IRA versus a regular IRA, like they may not have that necessarily that knowledge expertise, and that's okay. So I think being realistic about what a person can offer you in terms of that network, I think that makes a difference. And then I also think when it comes to finding social support, is don't be afraid to seek out um therapeutic services. So if you need therapy, if you are if you're applying for jobs and it's just not working out, if you can afford trying talking to a therapist or a mental health professional, I would encourage you to do so because it can be demoralizing, especially if you went to school, you have these degrees, you have this experience, but it's not working out. And then we we see the statistics when it comes to black women just for being a black woman that could prevent you from getting into a particular space. And that's hard, you know, that's hard. So seeking out that mental health support from a therapist, from a religious leader, um, maybe you have an elder in your community who can provide that social support in that way to help you to navigate the grief, the challenges, um, and just what it feels like to be in that space that could be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

That's a really great recommendation. Um, and I think that in the culture we're in now, we talk a bit about like May is mental health awareness month, and we talk a bit about the, you know, the importance of self-care. Um, but when we talk a bit about, you know, actively seeking out um a therapist to talk with, I think that there is still some shame and some stigma around um speaking with someone. And so, and one of the things that you said earlier, how do we get out of our own head if it means that we are we're gonna internalize what happened, we're stressed out, um, we're not in a good place. And now we are to the point where now we um we don't even see the value in getting up and moving out on action plans. Talk a bit about, I guess, how individuals should sort of get rid of that mental stigma around. Around just picking up your phone, your computer, opening it up and doing a quick Google search to find someone to talk to.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

I think you said it. Break it up into steps. So, you know, there was a year ago, Siza tweeted that when she was having some mental health challenges and she may have wanted to go to a class, even if she was late for the class, she would still get in her car and drive to where the class was. She may not have been able to go in, but the simple act was helping help her out. And so I think when we think about our moving through challenging mental health spaces, I think breaking it down into smaller pieces is beneficial. So you may not be able to call the therapist today, but you say to yourself, okay, well, today I'm at least going to open up my computer and do a Google search and see what kind of therapists are out there. That might be my goal for today. That might be all I can handle. I'll do and then maybe I sit down and do something else. And then tomorrow, now I have the list. Maybe I'm going to go through and start looking at websites. I'll look at three websites today. Okay, I looked at three websites. Okay, that's good. And then the next day, okay, now let me call one of them. This person seems interested, and let me contact them to see if they're gonna be a good fit. But also, remember, we talked about earlier having that buffer in place in case it gets challenging. They often talk about clinicians often talk about how finding a good therapist is like finding a good pair of shoes. It has to be a good fit. So yeah, I love that. This person is the right one for me because you know, they have this beautiful website. They may not, their values and the way that they approach the therapeutic environment may not align with you. And that's okay. You know, so I think also giving ourselves grace that it's not going to, it may not be an immediate fit and it may take some time. So even in that space of like, okay, I'm getting over this shame, I'm getting over this guilt, I'm gonna be patient with myself and be patient with the process as well. And talk to your folks. So if you, if you're going through a hard time and you have a close confidant or a close friend, if you feel comfortable telling them, like, listen, I need to do something different, I need to change. This is hard. Let them know. I was on the phone with one of my best teams from grad school yesterday, and I just was casually like, I need I have this big event coming up, and I don't know what I'm gonna wear. I don't know how I'm gonna find something to wear. And she took she went online and she found outfits for me and she sent them to me. So sometimes I didn't even tell her that I needed the help, but she could sense that in that moment I needed the support. Wow. And she did that for me, you know. So sometimes even just telling, we may not be ready to talk to the therapist, but we may be ready to talk to a sister or a cousin or a brother, and they can help us in ways that we may be able to identify and also ways we may not be able to identify as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Awesome. What's the key to generating sparks in terms of our own individual self-growth?

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Oof. Um, I would say a big component is to stay curious. Even in those days where you're like, I applied for five jobs, I applied for 10 jobs, and I'm over it. Was there something interesting that you discovered along the way? Did you find out a new piece of information about this particular job? Did you find out that you have this, that you're able to apply to 10 jobs in one day, right? So stay curious, stay interested in in what's happening. And I think that that will sustain us, not just in this like minute's resolution or hard challenges phase of life. But I think it's just a beautiful way to live life. Kids, they they're curious about everything. They're like, look, I found this piece of lint. And you're like, what? Why are you so interested in this lint? But they see the wonder in the world around us. And I think when we lean into that, that can make these times that we're in just a little more manageable.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Any part in quotes? That's gonna be my last my last question. Any parting quotes? You have some really good quotes earlier.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

I think uh we are each other's harvest. I think that's especially in these days and times. We really have to lean on each other. We have to do this for each other.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

All right. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Monique Major, for joining me today. Um, folks, that is it for this edition of the Spark Factor. Looking forward to seeing you all next time.