Many of us have grandiose plans for New Year’s resolutions with the new year so recently upon us. We think of all sorts of personal and business actions we plan to take to improve our performance: exercising more, eating less junk food, being more punctual, being more disciplined, improving a skill, etc. It’s great to plan ahead and imagine a set of actions we could take, but this intent rarely results in us taking real action leading to positive change.

I’ve often thought about why this intent doesn’t translate into results. We look back one year later and not much has changed. The end result: no actions have been taken and our desired results have not been achieved.

One of my trusted advisers recently pointed me to The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, which takes his experience as a surgeon making to-do lists and applies it to the outside world (Malcolm Gladwell, in a guest review on Amazon, says “It has been years since I read a book so powerful and so thought-provoking”). Gawande’s insights and my own realizations led me to a conclusion: the reasons we fail are simple.

1. We don’t start with a list
2. Our objectives can’t be broken down into weekly, measurable actions
3. We don’t regularly track our progress and get feedback on how we’re doing

I’m approaching this year differently. Here’s how:

1. I’ve made a concise list of achievable personal and professional goals to improve my performance
2. I keep them visible to me and my trusted advisers and get regular coaching
3. Each week, I measure my progress against the actions I’ve committed to take
4. I’m having the people I work with do the same thing and I’m giving them feedback on key near term actions they’ll take

We’re still in January so it’s early days, but so far this approach of making a list and tracking my actions is working. I’m taking small actions each week that will impact me greatly over the course of the year.

I know what’s on my list. What’s on yours?