Resolutions to Results: The Operations Playbook
New Year, new goals, same operational chaos? Your resolutions need more than motivation.
Every year, businesses set ambitious goals: growth targets, efficiency gains, cultural commitments. And every year, many of those goals quietly fade, not because they were wrong, but because there wasn’t enough operational structure behind them. The same dynamic plays out at the individual level with New Year’s resolutions.
In January, I have clear eyes, a fresh outlook, and the urge to improve. It feels like I can’t lose, and this year is no different. Personally, I welcome the new year as a fresh start and a chance to reset on my priorities. Like so many other people, I set goals year after year to prioritize my health and reduce stress.
Setting goals is the easy part, but keeping them? Nearly half of us are likely to abandon our resolutions by the end of January, and only 9% will complete them by year's end (Forbes).
This means that even the best laid plans and the purest intentions need operations, not just optimism to make it to the top 10%. Goal setting is a great start, especially well-defined ones, but once the excitement wears off, all that we’re left with is the real everyday work.
On an individual level, abandoned resolutions sting but rarely have lasting consequences. For businesses, though, the stakes are higher. Deprioritizing your stated goals may enable short-term gains, but it risks long-term damage like diminished credibility, lack of alignment, and poor morale. At any scale - personal, team, or company - translating goals into action, momentum and success is enormously powerful.
My position as a Business Development Operations Associate here at Viget is all about operationalizing success. My job is to build the systems that help Viget’s goals actually happen. Here’s how I do it:
- Replace Motivation with Systems. Motivation fades, systems stay, and they simplify the work. In BD ops, I don’t rely on daily inspiration to track projects or follow up on tasks. Building infrastructure with automated reminders, templates, and consistent ways to analyze criteria, makes the right actions automatic and less chaotic. Setting up Slack Canvases, for example, helps reinforce that system by keeping key context, checklists, and decision notes in one living doc that the team can update over time.
- Create More Checkpoints. Regular reviews beat year-end recaps. In operations and my personal life, I've learned that consistent check-ins catch issues early, which limits missed follow-ups and long stretches of misaligned priorities. Getting real-time feedback, even when it's uncomfortable, lets us actually improve instead of repeating the same mistakes. Short feedback loops also promote accountability; nothing falls off anyone’s radar for long.
- Secure Small Wins. One improved process compounds over time. This month I might standardize agendas and call notes, which paves the way for next month’s focus on streamlined documentation and resource management. These aren't flashy; honestly, they are quite thankless— and I like them that way. However, they add up to quicker responses, cleaner handoffs, and hopefully higher close rates. Small operational wins build the momentum that big goals require.
With that being said, resolutions can be rigid and binary; you make them or break them. But operations? Operations can bend, adapt, and build. That's how we end up in the 10%– not through willpower, but through systems that make success inevitable.
How is your company approaching 2026?
