Against New Year’s Resolutions

TTL 20

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth starting now.

👋 Good Morfternight! Paolo Belcastro here, welcoming you to the twentieth issue of TTL: Tools & Thoughts for Leaders, your weekly dose of leadership insights.

I see you there, getting ready for New Year’s—promising yourself you’ll start fresh, setting resolutions, maybe a new diet, a gym plan, or finally launching that passion project.

Let me tell you a remarkable method to set your New Year’s resolutions right: don’t.

I don’t mean don’t set them in this or that way. Just don’t set them.

Allow me to explain.

The illusion of perfect timing

We’ve all done it—promised ourselves that we’ll start a diet on Monday, launch a blog on January 1st, or begin a workout routine when the new month rolls around. It feels logical—even comforting—to align important decisions with symbolic dates.

Think about it: so many blogs are launched in January, coinciding with the wave of New Year’s resolutions—something we notice in domain purchases every year. I often wonder how long they’ll remain active.

It’s not that I don’t believe in people’s willpower, but I don’t think willpower can be switched on or off by the calendar.

Most of my accomplishments, both big and small ones, have started on random dates.

I started writing Morfternight on September 29th.

I sent the first TTL in the middle of summer, on July 21st.

I just started going back to the gym last week, on the 25th of November—ignoring all the promotions gyms will have in January.

Why wait for the “perfect time”?

Most meaningful beginnings don’t happen on carefully chosen days. They start when you decide something matters enough to take the first step—whether it’s a random Tuesday in July or a chilly November morning.

Don’t put a date on your willpower—let it drive your work.

The calendar is arbitrary

Let’s change perspective for a second.

Often, we don’t realize that many of the rules we live by are just social constructs or artificial systems. Take the calendar itself.

Someone might argue it makes sense because the Earth orbits the Sun, and so once a year we find ourselves in the same position. But even that’s not accurate. The planets follow the Sun as it orbits our galaxy, meaning that we’re never in the same place in the universe.

@into.space.7

Fascinating! 🪐🌎🌕 #solarsystem #space #physics #geology #asteroid #comets

♬ Unstoppable (I put my armor on, show you how strong I am) – Sia

“But Paolo, we need to organize time somehow!”

Of course. Symbolic dates like January 1st or the start of a new week are mental anchors. They give us a sense of order and structure, but they don’t have any real influence on whether a goal will succeed.

The same goes for concepts like birthdays or weekdays.

Personally, I don’t believe in birthdays. I’m just the same person the day after my birthday as I was the day before. The same applies to weeks. Take newsletters: we often decide they should go out every 7 days. But who decided that is the perfect interval? Wouldn’t it be better to just send out a new piece when it’s ready?

These systems are practical for coordination but ultimately arbitrary.

The calendar, like many other constructs, is simply one of countless ways to interpret the movement of the universe.

The trap of perfectionism and procrastination

One of the biggest barriers to starting is perfectionism. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re “not ready.” Maybe you need to learn more, plan better, or wait for the right circumstances.

But perfectionism is frequently just procrastination in disguise.

There’s a Chinese proverb that says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now”.

If you had started 20 years ago, you’d already be enjoying the benefits—shade, fruit, or growth. But since that time is gone, the next best moment is right now.

When I started Morfternight on September 29th, there was nothing fancy about it. I wrote a rough draft and sent it out to 22 people—my friends and a few acquaintances I figured wouldn’t mind receiving it. It wasn’t polished or perfect, but it was a start.

I could, and in the past I have, spent weeks setting up the site, picking the best theme, the right plugins, and overall entertaining the wrong feeling that I was moving forward towards my goal of sending a newsletter because “I was working on it”.

Waiting for ideal conditions only delays progress further.

Why acting now is essential

There are other great benefits on starting now.

Heraclitus famously said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.”

The river flows forward, and so do we. Each moment is fleeting, unique, and will never return exactly as it is now.

Waiting for a future date assumes that conditions will somehow improve, but that’s rarely the case. Life is constantly shifting, and the best time to act is when inspiration strikes.

Here are two reasons why starting immediately is essential:

1. Urgency fades. If something truly matters, it deserves action now. Delaying risks losing the momentum and passion that sparked the idea in the first place.
2. Action fosters growth. Only by doing can you gain the insights and feedback that lead to improvement. Start today, and by January, you’ll have a clearer sense of direction—far ahead of where you’d be if you were just beginning.

It is even true for surgeons. Yes, they spend years in medical school, but their skills are truly developed in the operating room. Practice and feedback turn knowledge into expertise. The same principle applies to everything from writing a novel to starting a fitness routine.

Now, write your resolutions

Yes, I know I’m contradicting myself, but bear with me.

Take a piece of paper, write down your resolutions and divide them into two columns:

1. Things you’d start right now
2. Things you’re planning to start on January 1st

Now, cross out the second column entirely. If those goals were truly urgent, you wouldn’t delay them until January.

Be honest with yourself: if you’ve been putting them off, they’re likely not essential enough to pursue.

Focus instead on the first column. These are the ideas that feel alive and relevant now.

Unless you think of something on January 1st, waiting for the new year to start working on it is a wasted opportunity.

If you’re not doing it now, you probably shouldn’t do it at all.

---

That’s it for today.

If someone forwarded this to you, you can subscribe to get your copy next week. If you enjoyed reading this, please share it.

Here on TTL, we dig into practical leadership tips and effective strategies, with a particular focus on tech leadership and managing distributed teams (that’s what I do every day, add me on LinkedIn).

Whether you’re steering a tech startup or leading a remote team, these insights are designed to help you navigate the complexities of modern leadership.

---

I also publish on paolo.blog and monochrome.blog

Cheers,