Why I frame new year’s plans as Big F*ck Off Goals instead of resolutions.

Around this time of year, everyone makes loose plans to change their lives; the first few weeks of January see an influx of gym sign-ups, book-reading, and daily ritual-forming. As most of us know, these resolutions are easier to create than maintain; a 2016 study found that 41% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions but only 9% feel they were successful in keeping them.

Over the past few years, I’ve spent time between December and January thinking about and defining a new year’s BFOG (Big F*ck Off Goal) — my own interpretation of a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal). It’s probably my rural Ireland upbringing, but I find it much easier to create these goals accurately with the framing that when I tell people them, they’ll respond with “f*ck off”, rather than “that’s hairy and audacious” (the term BHAG was coined by Jim Collins in his book ‘Built to Last’).

On surface level, these new year’s BFOGs aren’t too dissimilar to new year’s resolutions. For example, my 2020 BFOG was to ‘Be Less Dumb’ (context later on); 2021 focused on ‘Travel’; 2022 was to ‘Build Yourself’; and my 2023 BFOG is to ‘Live Deliberately’. The titles themselves are pretty close to resolutions — in between vague and specific — but the difference comes from deep thought around them.

What separates a BFOG from a resolution?

1. There is only one BFOG, and one BFOG alone, each year.

When you reach a new year, you’re invigorated to make changes to every single aspect of your life that you find lacking. The fact of the matter is, the more goals you focus on, the less attention you can give to each specific goal. The same applies to almost everything in life, so instead of trying to ‘get fit’ and ‘see the world’ and ‘read a book every month’ and X and Y and Z, focus on one thing; or as Stephen Covey put it:

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

2. Deep thought goes into the BFOG before deciding it.

“Why this goal?” “Is it relevant?” “Is it something worth prioritising?” “Will it lead toward an improved quality of life?” Asking many questions, and spending considerable amounts of time on ideating the BFOG, allows you to understand the goal in fine detail, which makes it much more defined and significant in achieving.

• ‘Be Less Dumb’ came from being thrown into the deep-end of the UN, surrounded by highly-intelligent people (for the most part). Yes, ‘Dumb’ is pretty crude and self-deprecating, but it hit my ego hard enough at the time to launch me into learning more.
• ‘Travel’ came from lockdown in west Limerick, and 13 cancelled trips due to COVID. Other motivations existed, such as wanting to learn more about other cultures, but making up for lost opportunities was the root cause to make it the main goal.
• ‘Build Yourself’ came from being rejected from every (three, I was picky) graduate programmes I applied for. I realised I relied heavily on the status quo of progress through college and beyond, and really didn’t want to be restricted to that.
• ‘Live Deliberately’ came from realising how much time I either spend passively, or outright waste, on things that I do without much thought— phone use, heading out for pints, binge-watching Netflix. I don’t view any of these as bad, but I want to explore why I do these.

3. They are embedded into your life, rather than your life bending to suit them.

I find that embedding the goal into your life, and viewing it as a new iteration of how you live, makes it far more natural to actually achieve the goal, rather than viewing it as some huge sacrifice or struggle to achieve. Focusing on lifestyle change, rather than a singular action, acts as a pretty good motivator when discipline begins to fade — especially when you ask yourself “am I working toward my BFOG right now?”.

4. They’re Big (duh) and vague, allowing for a dynamic and fluid approach.

You might find that certain approaches to the goal work better than others, but that can only be discovered by trying new ways to see what works best. Some things will stick, and some won’t. Some will be continuous, and others will come in and out of your life as you need them.

5. They tend to continue beyond a year, and are stronger the following year(s).

It’s most likely due to their vagueness, but I don’t find an expiration date with BFOGs, or that one-, three-, or six-month drop-off that people who set resolutions often find. This helps with the longevity and effectiveness of the goals, provided you revise and review them periodically; BFOGs are easily compounded if you engage in self-reflection to see how or where you can improve them. It’s a process of development, so let it happen.

6. They work well with previous BFOGs.

As the number of BFOGs increase over the years, I notice a pretty good overlap between them.

• A key learning of the ‘Be Less Dumb’ BFOG was that I knew very little about other cultures, which was a key objective to the ‘Travel’ BFOG.
• ‘Travel’ showed me other ways of life, and that I need to learn more about myself and develop stronger character to live a fuller life, leading to the ‘Build Yourself’ BFOG.
• This self-learning showed me how much time I spend passively, leading me to ‘Live Deliberately’.
• In the few days that I’ve engaged in this BFOG, I have learned quite a bit about concentration and conscious decision-making, in turn helping me to ‘Be Less Dumb’.

Your previous BFOGs guide your future BFOGs, which in turn guide your previous BFOGs even more, creating a pretty interesting blend of synergy and circularity.

Consider each BFOG as one of these circles. As the number of circles increase, the learnings from each and overall effectiveness compound in the centre, leading to significant improvements in whatever areas you focus on.

7. The success of a BFOG is almost guaranteed.

Thinking about what this would look like if it were successful, with success being either something created worth implementing further, or lessons learned from it to contribute to a greater understanding of it all, helps to imagine how you may achieve the goal over the course of the year. There’s much more to this — it’s about reframing what success and failure means, and that’s a journey that would take much more than this article to begin unpacking.

Admittedly, that’s the extent of how I work out my BFOGs. Other than that, it’s a case of diving in, and giving it a go. The overall success of the BFOG is determined by either a better life experience, or better insights and learnings, and so long as you put in the preparation before deciding the BFOG for the year, failure really isn’t a possibility, once you’re not too hard on yourself in the process.