Kirby Ferguson 1/2/24 Kirby Ferguson 1/2/24

New Year’s Resolutions Work. Let’s Make Some.

Image created with Midjourney and Runway

My new ChatGPT course is live! I’m very proud of it and I think it’ll make a dent in your life. See the end of this article for a special launch promo.

New Year’s resolutions are a tradition with a bit of a bad rep. Sure, most resolutions will fail. Almost all attempts at making change in your life will ultimately fail. You exercise for a while, your enthusiasm fades, your workout sessions taper off, and before long you’re back where you were. You revert to our old ways – and you may find yourself demoralized and ashamed to boot.

Of course, if you keep trying, you will eventually break through. This is a certainty. Every major change I’ve made in my life was preceded by a string of failures. I tried to clean up my diet dozens of times before the change held.

Certain moments, though, give you better odds of creating change that sticks. When you get a clean slate in your life, a reset, it’s a bit easier to change your ways and keep it going. For example, when you move or start a new job or begin a new relationship.

Every year we get a new clean slate at the start of the year. And the changes we make at times like this are a little more likely to stick because we feel less weighed down by our past.

Change is hard and it mostly doesn’t work (unless you never stop trying). But the start of a new year provides an unusually good opportunity to pull it off.

Convinced? Alright, let’s make some resolutions!

Step 1: Give this year a theme

Your theme is your mission for the year, it’s the adventure you’re about to embark on.

For me, 2024 is My Best Year Ever. The main focus is my business. I worked all of 2023 creating the groundwork to build a proper business and livelihood. I’ve now got a superb product, a strong market, and loads of ideas and tactics for marketing and sales. I intend to rock the shit out of this year.

In 2023, I created 2X growth in this business in just six months of focus. This year I want 10X.

This could be your year of simplicity, creativity, giving, health, balance, or any realm you want to improve. (Not every resolution needs to fit the theme, but the most important ones should.) Your theme is what will give your resolutions meaning and purpose.

Step 2: Make some resolutions (not too many)

Now make some resolutions! Reflect on the year past. What went well and what didn’t? What are the areas of your life where you’d like to see improvement? What are some exciting and somewhat risky goals you can make?

Remember: a resolution is an activity, not a goal. My 10X business goal for this year is not a resolution. The resolutions are what will help me achieve that goal. “Lose 10 pounds” is a goal. “No snacking after 7pm” is a resolution.

How many should you make? Certainly no more than ten. If you want to keep things simple, three is always a good number. And if you’ve just got a single thing on your mind, one is just great.

I’ve made a few resolutions for my business and a few for my personal life.

Step 3: Write 'em down and put 'em everywhere

Write down the theme for the year and your resolutions and read them every day. Stick post-it notes everywhere, make them a daily item on your to-do list, write them down each day in your journal, whatever. Occasionally relocate them to someplace fresh.

Celebrate the little wins along the way. Get support from friends and family and be your own biggest cheerleader.

2024 is the year to start using AI

Conveniently enough, I have a recommendation for what one of those resolutions should be. This is the year to learn ChatGPT and AI. You should integrate AI into your work life this year, especially if creating content is part — or all — of your job.

And guess who should teach you? Yep, yours truly!

Learning ChatGPT can do any or all of these:

Raise your content creation game
Help you get more done in the same time
Allow you to work less

I achieved the first two of these while creating this course. The course is a bit better than it would have been without AI, and I created over 2 hours of high-quality content in just 2.5 months of part-time-ish work. Most excitingly, I released it on schedule, on Christmas day. Anybody who knows my history knows launching things on time has never exactly been my superpower.

After just the couple hours it takes to watch this course, plus your own practice, you will be good at working with ChatGPT. (For anyone thinking you can binge random YouTube videos and get the same result, sorry, you definitely won’t.)