Happy New Year!  With that, the ques­tion on everyone’s lips . . . what are your res­o­lu­tions?  The top responses include lose weight, stress less, spend more time with fam­ily, and stick to a bud­get. All wor­thy goals, but many that make them will have given up before Feb­ru­ary 1. Why?? They rep­re­sent a desire, not a spe­cific goal or outcome.

In health care, we can be painfully aware of “out­comes,” such as when we are not meet­ing those required by our insti­tu­tion, the Joint Com­mis­sion, or CMS. But nam­ing a spe­cific desired out­come is the best way to stick to a res­o­lu­tion or achieve a goal because you can put inter­ven­tions, or steps, into place and have a mea­sur­able result.

Some peo­ple avoid mak­ing New Year’s res­o­lu­tions entirely to avoid fail­ure, but I swing to the other side. I enjoy mak­ing res­o­lu­tions so much that I do so for the tra­di­tional New Year and for the Jew­ish New Year. I also tend to eval­u­ate my goals monthly, just to check in and gauge where I’m at. This can lead to goal engorge­ment, or an over­abun­dance of goals, and an extremely busy cal­en­dar. Maybe my goal should be fewer goals? Not going to hap­pen, we all have limits.

What I’m propos­ing this year is that we as nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­als take the oppor­tu­nity to improve more than our waist line, check­ing account, or yoga prac­tice. Make at least one spe­cific, mea­sur­able, New Year’s res­o­lu­tion involv­ing your career. And do so not because it will look good on paper, or increase your raise at your annual review but because you chose to become a health pro­fes­sional and that demands con­tin­ued improve­ment and a desire for excel­lence. A healthy dose of self moti­va­tion in 2011, and maybe one less serv­ing of pie.