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CommentaryCommentary

Why you shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions

By
Veenu Aishwarya
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By
Veenu Aishwarya
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January 9, 2015, 7:00 AM ET
Courtesy of Veenu Aishwarya

The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “What’s one New Year’s resolution to improve your career in 2015?” is written by Veenu Aishwarya, CEO of AUM LifeTech.

Every year many of us make both personal and professional New Year’s resolutions. However, most of these resolutions are never achieved for various reasons. So this year, instead of making new resolutions and add to the accumulating “debt” of promises, I propose a slightly different approach: tackle the resolutions that you didn’t complete.

How can you do that? It’s simple. Make a list of all previous unfinished New Year’s resolutions that you made in the past 5 years (or even more if you can go further down your memory lane). Once you have made the list, focus on the ones that you feel are best and try to finish them this year.

This may sound silly, but trust me at the end of the year you will be “debt free” of all the promises that you made to yourself in the past several years. It can also be a great gift to yourself for 2016. Additionally, doing so may help improve your time management skills by getting you to acknowledge deadlines and stick to them. For those who usually achieve all of your New Year’s resolutions – I salute you.

Read all answers to the Leadership Insider question: What’s one New Year’s resolution to improve your career in 2015?

How to achieve financial success in 2015 by Alexa von Tobel, founder and CEO of LearnVest.com.

Watch more opinions on New Year Resolutions from Fortune’s video team:

About the Author
By Veenu Aishwarya
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