January’s Liars
Forget your resolutions. Focus on systems.
The gym is packed right now. I just drove by more joggers than I’ve seen in the last six months combined. Your LinkedIn feed is drowning in declarations. Everyone's got their word of the year, their vision board, their ambitious goals carefully crafted into carousel posts with pastel graphics.
Give it six weeks.
By mid-February, half those gym memberships will be gathering dust. By March, those bold proclamations will be quietly deleted or conveniently forgotten. The gap between what people say in January and what they actually do by spring reveals more about leadership character than any 360 review ever could.
I'm not here to shame New Year's resolutions. I'm here to talk about the lie we tell ourselves—and worse, the lie leaders tell their teams—when we confuse declaration with dedication.
The Public Commitment Problem
In baseball operations, we had a saying: "Everyone's got a plan until they see the playoff odds in August." It's easy to talk about building a championship culture in February when spring training is fresh and hope is infinite. It's a lot harder to stick to that plan when you're ten games back and the trade deadline is looming.
The same principle applies to January declarations. Making a public commitment feels like progress. It triggers a little dopamine hit. You get the likes, the encouraging comments, the "you've got this!" from people who will never follow up. And that feeling—that social validation—becomes a substitute for the actual work.
This is why I'm skeptical of leaders who announce their priorities in all-hands meetings or post about their goals on social media. Not because ambition is bad, but because the announcement itself creates a false sense of accomplishment. You've already gotten the reward—the recognition, the perception of being someone who has their act together—without doing anything.
The real question isn't what you say you're going to do in January. It's what you're still doing in July when nobody's watching and nobody cares.
The Credibility Tax
Your team is keeping score.
They remember last January when you rolled out the new strategic priorities. They remember the Q2 town hall when those priorities quietly morphed into something else. They definitely remember Q4 when none of it mattered anymore because you were chasing a completely different shiny object.
Every time you announce a big initiative and fail to follow through, you're paying a credibility tax. And unlike actual taxes, this one compounds. Each broken commitment makes the next one less believable. Your team stops taking you seriously. They nod along in meetings while mentally writing off everything you say as "more January bullshit."
I saw this constantly in organizational leadership. Executives would declare "this is the year we prioritize development" or "we're committed to work-life balance" or whatever the flavor-of-the-month leadership book told them to say. Then they'd proceed to act exactly as they always had: rewarding whoever worked the longest hours, promoting the same personality types, and showing through their behavior that none of those declarations actually mattered.
Your team doesn't believe your 2026 vision because your 2025 execution told them not to.
The Accountability Gap
The difference between January's liars and actual performers comes down to one thing: accountability systems.
Great hitters don't just declare "I'm going to raise my batting average this year." They work with their hitting coach to identify specific mechanical issues. They review video. They track their swing decisions. They have someone who will tell them the truth when they're reverting to bad habits. The system keeps them honest when motivation fades.
Most people skip this part entirely. They set a goal, announce it publicly, then rely entirely on willpower and motivation to carry them through. And when willpower inevitably runs out—because it always does—they're left with nothing. No system, no accountability, no one to call them on their bullshit.
If you're a leader, this should terrify you. Because your team is watching you go through this exact cycle. They see you set priorities without systems. They see you make commitments without accountability. And they learn that this is how things work around here—lots of talk, minimal follow-through.
Want to know if you're a January liar? Ask yourself this: Do you have someone in your life who has permission to call you out when you're not living up to what you said? Not someone who will be "supportive" and make excuses for you. Someone who will look you in the eye and say "you said this mattered, but your calendar says otherwise."
If you don't have that person, you're probably lying to yourself.
The Scoreboard Doesn't Care
January optimism conveniently ignores one fundamental truth: results are the only thing that matter.
The market doesn't care about your intentions. Your competition doesn't care about your vision board. The scoreboard doesn't give you points for trying hard or having good energy or posting inspirational quotes on LinkedIn.
I learned this in professional sports where the standings were published daily for everyone to see. You could have the best player development philosophy in the world, but if your team couldn't hit breaking balls, you were still losing. You could talk about culture all you wanted, but if you didn't have the pitching depth to compete in September, you were going home early.
The same applies to whatever you're declaring this January. Your career, your leadership, your organization—they're all keeping score whether you acknowledge it or not. And the score is based on what you actually do, not what you said you'd do on January 1st.
What Winners Do Instead
The leaders and performers I respect don't make January declarations. They make quiet commitments and then show up consistently when no one's watching.
They build systems that make follow-through inevitable rather than relying on motivation that will fade by February. They create accountability structures that catch them when they slip rather than hoping they'll somehow stay disciplined forever. They measure what matters and they review that data regularly, even when—especially when—it's unflattering.
Most importantly, they understand that the gap between what you say and what you do is the most important metric of your character. Close that gap and everything else gets easier. Let it widen and nothing you declare will ever matter.
So before you post your 2026 goals or announce your new priorities to your team, ask yourself: Am I actually committed to this, or am I just performing commitment? Do I have the systems to follow through, or am I counting on January's energy to carry me through December?
Because we're all watching. And we'll remember what you said when March rolls around and you've moved on to something else.
The scoreboard always tells the truth. January's liars just don't want to look at it.