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The One Word L&D Resolution (2019 Edition)

“Start a blog” was my New Year’s Resolution for 2012. Almost 7 years and 650 posts later, I’m still here (full disclosure: my colleague Heather Snyder has written a good portion of those 650 posts since she joined Endurance Learning in mid-2017).

For the past six years, I’ve shared a one-word resolution that I’ve chosen to guide me personally and professionally in the new year.

In 2013 it was momentum as I pondered the most critical element to successful learning programs. In 2014 it was possibility as I pondered the idea of launching my own company. In 2015 it was execution. In 2016 it was risk. In 2017 it was ruthless as I knew there were some tough decisions I needed to make and my prioritization was going to need to be ruthless. For 2018 I chose joy, and I was joined by my colleagues Heather (who chose the word growth) and Tim (who chose the word focus).

Heading into 2019, my head is wrapped around the word New. While I want to continue being amazing for our current customers and blog readers, I want to also see what other possibilities are out there. I want to keep an eye toward new research and trends to write about. And on a personal front, I’m looking forward to some new beginnings.

What are my Endurance Learning colleagues thinking about with their one-word resolutions?


Heather here, and I have been thinking about my one-word resolution for several months. 2019 has me thinking about something totally new to me.

Push. There is a Buddhist philosophy that says we are the owner of our actions and the heir to our actions. At work, that can be scary to think about when there are factors that seem totally out of our control like co-workers missing deadlines, clients throwing curve balls, and other unexpected events. This year, I plan to push past that logic. I want to push myself to do exactly what I set out to do no matter what the obstacle, to push past excuses, and drive toward success with that intention.


I (Tim here) only thought about a resolution once Brian and Heather told me we were doing this again. I’ve never believed much in tying resolutions to the calendar year. Why wait!? So, when we first talked about this in November I decided that what I had really been focusing on was making the best use of my time and energy and immediately starting putting things in place to make that happen.

Optimization. I’m very lucky that I get to work on a lot of different projects and products every day. Optimization is a great word for me this year because I can always improve how I use my time and talents (and when I don’t). It is also key to my work as a developer on a product development effort we’ve been working on. If I’m good at optimizing how I use my time I can spend more time optimizing my code to make for a better product experience and quicker bug fixes and enhancements!


This will be our final post in 2018. Thank you so much for reading our musings and for commenting from time to time. We will be sharing some of our favorite posts through social media (FacebookLinkedInTwitter). Pick your poison!

If there are some topics you’d like to see more of in the new year, please drop us a line and let us know what you’re curious about.

In the meantime, have a fantastic holiday season, stay safe, be creative, draw inspiration from everywhere, and we’ll see you back on Train Like A Champion in the new year!

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