This year, we’re determined not to break our resolutions – so we’ve decided to tell everybody what they are.

We made it! Here we are in the 2020s – a new year, a new decade, a new… us? Well, hardly, though here at Ashford HQ, we have been thinking about what this year will bring for us and what we can bring to this year. In other words, we’ve made our new year resolutions. And so far, so good – we haven’t broken any (yet)!

The most common reason for breaking resolutions is because the resolutions were unrealistic in the first place. Basically, new year resolutions are goals. So let’s treat them in the same way as we do business goals, starting by making them SMART.

SMART goals

Specific: State the resolution as clearly as possible. For example, ‘eating fruit and veg every day’ or ‘stopping smoking’ are more specific than the woolly goal of ‘being healthier’.

Measurable: Quantify the resolution if possible, e.g. ‘I will eat five portions of fruit and veg every day’ or ‘I will stop smoking by 31 March 2020’.

Achievable: Choose a goal that is possible, though challenging. If you’ve never run before, ‘Completing the Couch to 5k programme’ would be a challenge and an achievement, whereas the goal of ‘Running a marathon’ might be doomed to failure.

Relevant: Keep your resolutions relevant to your priorities. There would be little point in the entire Ashford crew and their families resolving to go on a three-month round-the-world cruise together when none of us would have a job to come back to!

Timed: Set a time frame in which you will achieve your resolution. A deadline concentrates the mind and prevents things from dragging on and on. It also means you can set a date when you can celebrate success.

Communication’s what you need

To have a chance of success, we also need to make a commitment to achieving our goals. One way of doing this is to communicate our resolutions, for example by writing them down (hence we are writing this blog!)

Writing down resolutions helps us to clarify what we want to achieve. It gives us a tangible reminder of what we set out to do, and shows how far we’ve come and how successful we’ve been. At the end of the year (fingers crossed), we’ll be able to look back at this blog and crack open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate our achievements.

But writing them down is not enough. If nobody else knows, it will be too easy to ignore our resolutions or forget about them. And if we don’t achieve a goal, nobody will notice or even care. On the other hand, by going public, we feel obliged to follow through on our promises. We don’t want to let anyone down – a mild sense of guilt can be a great motivator!

Our resolutions for the year to come

So… here are Ashford’s resolutions for 2020, both personal and business. We’ve edited them to make them SMART where possible. We’ll leave it up to you to work out which personal goals belong to individual members of the team!

Personal resolutions from the team

  • Get up from my chair more often every hour during the working day.
  • Continue to improve my fitness – starting by running at least a mile every day in January and cycling to work every day.
  • Continue to be well-organised – but be more flexible and relaxed when things don’t go to plan.
  • Do a life laundry, starting with the hundreds of books in my office that I will never read again!
  • Spend more time every evening chatting with my partner and less time sitting in silence watching TV/iPad.
  • Learn to play the harp.
  • Improve my fitness and have more mobility by going for a walk every day.
  • Improve my results Endeavour to win my class in motor racing.

Ashford’s professional resolutions

(The timed element is ‘throughout the year’ unless otherwise stated.)

  • Keep up to date with new ideas and discuss the opportunities they present, at our monthly meetings.
  • Update and expand our elearning catalogue continuously throughout the year.
  • Expand our expertise in the following areas:
    • Virtual reality (VR)
    • Microlearning
    • Interactive video
    • Mobile learning
    • Gamification
  • Continue to improve our traditional print-based offer and always remember our motto that ‘No job’s too big or too small’.
  • Keep the message on target and always remember who we’re writing for.
  • Be adaptable and flexible in every project we undertake, and keep stretching our comfort zone.
  • Continue to assist clients in understanding and resolving their hurdles to success.