Your Resolution Isn’t the Problem. Your Measurement Is.

It’s January, and millions of people have made the same resolution: “Eat better.”

By February, most will have abandoned it. Not because they lack willpower or discipline. Because “eat better” doesn’t mean anything.

Think about it. Does “eat better” mean cutting carbs? Going vegan? Eating more vegetables? Reducing processed foods? Intermittent fasting? Cooking at home more often?

These are wildly different goals. Some contradict each other. And until you know which one you’re actually pursuing, you have no idea whether you’re succeeding or failing. You’re just… eating, and feeling vaguely guilty about it.

This is where key results come in.

The Question That Changes Everything

In OKRs—Objectives and Key Results—the objective is your aspiration. The big, inspiring thing you want. “Eat better” qualifies. So does “get healthy” or “be more present” or “advance my career.”

The key results are how you’ll know if you’ve achieved it. They’re the evidence. The measurement. And here’s what most people miss: the act of defining your key results forces you to figure out what you actually mean.

Let’s walk through it.

You say you want to “eat better.” Okay. Close your eyes. Imagine it’s three months from now and you’ve succeeded. What’s different?

Maybe you picture yourself 10 pounds lighter. That’s one key result: Lose 10 pounds.

But wait—is weight really what you care about? Maybe what you actually picture is having more energy. Not crashing at 3pm. That’s a different measurement entirely. You might track Days per week with sustained energy (no afternoon crash).

Or maybe when you imagine success, you see yourself cooking dinner instead of ordering DoorDash. Now your key result is Cook dinner at home 5 nights per week.

Each of these points toward a different set of behaviors. The person trying to lose 10 pounds might count calories. The person seeking energy might focus on protein and sleep. The person cooking at home might meal prep on Sundays.

Same resolution. Completely different paths. And you couldn’t see the path until you defined the measurement.

What I Learned from Three Years of Data

I’ve been setting personal OKRs for years—tracking them weekly with an accountability group of three other women. Every Monday, I email my commitments. Every Friday, I report what actually happened.

Recently, I fed three years of those emails into an AI and asked it to find patterns.

What it found startled me.

I kept setting variations of the same objective: “Balance work and life.” Quarter after quarter. I’d come up with key results—things like tracking back pain, or monitoring my weight, or noting my energy levels. Signals of wellbeing.

And quarter after quarter, I’d fail.

Looking at the pattern laid out in front of me, I finally saw what I’d been missing. My problem wasn’t work-life balance. My problem was that I didn’t like the kind of work I was doing.

The key results kept failing because the objective was wrong. It wasn’t about balance. It was about joy.

This is the second thing key results do for you: when they consistently fail, they’re telling you something. Not that you lack discipline—that you might be chasing the wrong goal entirely.

OKRs as Permission

There’s one more thing I discovered in that analysis, and it surprised me most of all.

For years, I’d been putting off writing fiction. I had “real” work to do—books that could make money, courses to develop, consulting that paid the bills. Fiction felt indulgent. Every time I thought about working on a novel, guilt would stop me.

Meanwhile, I was paralyzed on the “real” work too. Terrible writer’s block. Couldn’t move forward on anything.

Then I did something radical: I made fiction into an OKR.

O: Finally write fiction
KR: Reduction in writer’s block incidents on other projects; 20k on potential revenue work

Suddenly, fiction wasn’t indulgent. It was on the list. It had equal standing with everything else. Every Monday morning when I sat down to report my progress, I’d see it there, reminding me: This is what you chose to do. You don’t have to feel guilty.

That permission changed everything. Not just for the fiction—for all my writing. Once I let myself do something joyful, the block loosened.

We think of OKRs as accountability tools. Discipline. Rigor. And they are. But they can also be permission structures. A way to legitimize the thing you want but feel guilty pursuing. When it’s written down as a key result, it’s no longer indulgence. It’s intention.

Try This With Your Resolution

Whatever resolution you’ve made—or are thinking about making—try this exercise.

Step 1: Ask what you actually mean.

“Get healthy” could mean a dozen different things. What does it mean to you, right now? Don’t pick the answer you think you should give. Pick the one that’s true.

Step 2: Define 2-3 key results.

What evidence would prove you’ve succeeded? Not activities (like “go to the gym”)—outcomes (like “run a mile without stopping” or “wake up feeling rested 5 days per week”).

Make them specific. Make them measurable. And be honest about whether you actually care about them.

Step 3: Give yourself permission to fail—and learn.

Your first quarter of personal OKRs is not about hitting your numbers. It’s about discovering what you actually want, what gets in your way, and whether your objective is even the right one.

If your key results keep failing, don’t beat yourself up. Get curious. Maybe you need different key results. Maybe you need a different objective entirely. Maybe—like me—you’ll discover that what you thought was the problem wasn’t the problem at all.

Step 4: Find an accountability partner.

Send someone your Monday commitments and Friday results. It doesn’t have to be elaborate—a simple email will do. The act of reporting to another human, even just one, makes the practice real in a way that a private note to yourself never will.

It’s About Results.

New Year’s resolutions fail because they’re wishes, not plans. They fail because “eat better” and “be healthier” and “find balance” are too vague to act on and too fuzzy to measure.

Key results fix this. Not because measurement is magic, but because the act of measuring forces clarity. It makes you confront what you actually want. And sometimes, when the data piles up, it reveals that what you wanted wasn’t the thing you needed at all.

That’s not failure. That’s the beginning of change.