Hello and welcome to Best Slave Plans.

This is your host Sarah Hart Unger and this is the podcast where we talk all things planning and planning adjacent.

This is one of my favorite times of year as we are in mid-December, and therefore today I am going to talk about a topic that is probably on many of your minds as we are kind of coasting to the finish line of 2023, and that is about annual goal setting or resolutions.

Now, those terms may be one in the same. Certainly New Year's resolutions has a

place in the cultural zeitgeist. You hear a lot about resolutions really only once a year. People

don't generally make summer resolutions or back-to-school resolutions, but people love to make New Year's

resolutions. I don't love the word resolutions personally.

I think it sounds kind of strict. Think about the word resolute doesn't sound fun. You picture someone

with like a really sad or not sad, but like determined but not happy look on their face,

trying to white knuckle their way

through something they wanted to do. That's what I think of when I think of resolutions. So I do

not set resolutions. What I do set, and I set many of, is I set annual goals. So why set annual

goals? You certainly don't have to, and you certainly don't have to do it on January 1.

I love the fresh start of a new year. Gretchen Rubin, who talks about a personality framework that

has to do with outer expectations versus inner expectations has a lot to say on whether people

are interested in making resolutions or goals at the start of a year.

People who are in the upholder type, or upholder as she pronounces it, tend to respond readily to both outer and inner expectations, and they love the start of a fresh new year. I count myself among that group. However, other types might not be as excited to do so. The questioner type,

where they respond really well to their own expectations and desires and not as well to outer,

that actually is my husband's type, and he is not really big on setting any goals at a specific time. He

considers the date arbitrary, and that

can be a really classic marker of someone who is a questioner. People who really respond to outer

expectations and not inner tend to be obligers, and they also kind of love the new year, especially if

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