What Assumptions Will You Hack in 2025?

5 minute read...

It’s that time of year—a time for reflecting on the past year, envisioning the changes we want in the coming year, planning how to turn them into reality, and making a commitment to ourselves to make it happen with New Year’s resolutions.

But the vast majority of people who set New Year's resolutions rapidly feel overwhelmed and discouraged. While most resolution-makers can clearly identify a behavior they want to change or an outcome they want to achieve, many struggle to turn these ambitions into reality. According to OSU’s Fisher College of Business, about ¼ of New Year's resolutions are abandoned in the first week, and nearly half by the end of January. In all, more than 90% of New Year’s resolutions end up going unfulfilled.

Why the long odds? 

Why is this? Why do so many people fail despite both knowing what they want to achieve and having the desire to achieve it? As they say in many a horror film, the call is coming from inside the house. Our behavior and the resulting outcomes we’ve experienced so far in life are shaped by at least one underlying belief we hold about ourselves or the world around us. Unless we have faced, challenged and changed whatever that belief is, we will likely find ourselves part of that overwhelming majority who make and then abandon their resolutions.

Better thinking, better results.

Maybe you find yourself hesitant to resolve – yet again – on some sort of change for this coming year. Maybe you’ve dropped the ball on enough past New Year’s resolutions that you’ve stopped trying. If that’s you, I want to offer you a different approach for 2025. Instead of focusing solely on actions or solely on outcomes, try and focus on the thinking behind those actions and outcomes. This is where Assumption Hacking comes in.

Assumption Hacking is a powerful tool that helps you uncover the invisible roadblocks in your thinking. It allows you to question your beliefs, identify constraints, and reframe your goals with clarity and intention so that you can make those changes you know you want in 2025.

Here’s how to apply Assumption Hacking to your New Year’s resolutions:

1. Start with Why

Before setting a resolution, check in with your feelings and ask:

• What’s motivating this resolution?
• Am I chasing this because it’s meaningful or because I think I “should”?

This might seem tedious or even indulgent, but if you take the time to Start With Why, you’re likely to uncover surprising insights that will refine your goals for 2025.

2. Challenge the How

• What steps do I believe are necessary to achieve this?
• Check in with your gut and ask, are those steps based on reality, or just unchecked assumptions about how things have to be done?

 Often, what we think is “required” is simply a habit of thought, not a fact.

3. Find the What

• What’s truly holding me back from achieving this goal? What is the constraint?
• If I could solve just one challenge, what would it be? What would make the biggest difference for my ability to make the change?

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) teaches us that focusing on one constraint – the one thing that would have the greatest impact on achieving the goal - can transform entire systems. This isn’t just a business tool – we can apply it to personal growth as well!

Two Examples:

      1. Let’s say your resolution is to “lose weight.”

• Start with why: Each person has their underlying reasons - could be that you want to live longer, you want to look better, or fit in your clothes that you’ve outgrown.
• Challenge the How: You’ve told yourself, “I need to join a gym and work out every day.” 
• Hacked Insight: Better health might be more about small, consistent actions, like improving sleep, focusing on nutrition, or reducing stress than it is about spending hours at the gym.
• Find the What: What has stopped you in the past? Perhaps it’s a belief that the only way to fit in is to eat and drink what your friends eat and drink. Or maybe you simply believe you can’t. This underlying assumption leads many to stop after the first slip.  Maybe this year you decide instead to get support from friends, and to forgive yourself and learn from your slips instead of getting off the healthy train just because you had a piece of chocolate.  

      2. Or perhaps your resolution is to “work harder.”

• Start with why: Maybe you are aiming for a promotion. Or to be recognized as a high potential, high contributing employee or manager.
• Challenge the how: You’ve told yourself, “Success requires spending endless hours at the office.
• Hacked insight: Success might be more about results and prioritizing tasks than it is about being busy all the time. Perhaps I should pay more attention to that old adage, work smarter and not harder.
• Find the What: Before, what’s held you back is the other aspects of your life. You didn’t want to spend all of your waking hours at the office, you wanted to have time with your friends and family too. Your hacked insight has given you an opening. Now you just need to gain insights on what you can do that would make a big difference.
  
  

2025: Your Year of Better Thinking

Despite their reputation for reversion, I believe making New Year’s Resolutions is still a worthwhile undertaking. They represent our innate desire to grow, improve, and change—and that’s something to celebrate, not dismiss.

But I invite you to do them differently this year. Precisely because of our culturally driven tendencies and the routines we have for making them, they make excellent Assumption Hacking candidates. By digging into the why of your resolution, the how of how it's process, and the what of “what's truly holding you back?”, you can transform 2025’s resolution from fleeting ambition into a powerful tool for personal growth.

One more hint: No need to make a long list of resolutions. Instead, focus on just one or two that really matter for you.  

Ready to make 2025 the year your resolutions truly stick? Dive deeper into the transformative power of Assumption Hacking with our Essentials course, or schedule a discovery call with me to explore how this approach can revolutionize your personal and professional goals.

Let’s make this the year of growth, clarity, and meaningful progress—starting now!

Until next time,
Lisa

Whenever you're ready, here are a couple more ways I can help you:

• Assumption Hacking Essentials. Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt said in his forward to The Goal, “The challenging of basic assumptions is essential to breakthroughs.” In this digital course, I'll take you through a five step process for challenging those basic assumptions and creating breakthrough in the process. You can learn more about the course here. →
• Jenrada Programs. Customized workshops and longer engagements to help you create an organization of aligned problem solvers delivering extraordinary results. Complete this form,  send me an email, or schedule a discovery call.