NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS & EMBRACING YOUR INNER QUITTER
Before you read, know that my editor wants me to quit something too -
quit writing long newsletters. I may need to work on this.
With the new year underway, everyone (including me) is making lists of what they'll do differently in 2026.
Read more. Exercise more. Start a side hustle. Fix, well... everything - including ourselves.
The desire to change and improve doesn't just end at our personal doorsteps; it extends to our classroom doors as well. This year, educators everywhere will vow to program less difficult music, respond to emails more quickly, spend more time recruiting, and find a better work-life balance.
But they won't.
If history is to teach us anything, it's that all this desire to change will eventually fade, and that most of us will return to the person we were before.
In fact, failing at New Year's resolutions is so common that there are several (unofficial) dates marking such failures, such as "Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day" as January 17, while others denote the second Friday in January as "Quitter’s Day."
I'm not hating on our shared desire to improve, I'm just being honest.
I say we skip the self-loathing associated with setting goals we will eventually fail at and go straight to embracing the failure itself. It's attainable, easily actionable, and much more efficient.
In short, why wait to fail and feel bad when we can quit now and feel good?
Instead of making lists of things we want to start, let's make a list of things we want to quit!
First of all, setting New Year's goals is absurd when the school year is half over. Seriously, Ever read a greeting card about "Happy Mid-Year? Do any of your friends toast July 1 at midnight with choruses of Auld Lang Syne?. Of course not!
January isn't our new year; it's our mid-year. Concert music litters the percussion cabinet, paperwork is stacked a mile high on the desk, and at some point, you really should answer the emails from 2025, right? Or, can we just delete them all and start fresh?
So, if it's the opposite of New Years, maybe we should celebrate with the opposite behavior. Let's not start something, let's quit something!
I am an unabashed fan of Steve Jobs as a business person, who, upon returning to Apple in 1997, found the company making more than 300 products. He cut about 70% of them. Not because they were bad or because people hated them, but because they were stealing focus from the few things that actually mattered. Apple wasn't failing because it was doing too little. They were failing because they were doing too much.
Sound familiar?
Most music educators aren't overwhelmed because we're lazy or disorganized (well, perhaps some of us are guilty of being disorganized). We're overwhelmed because we care. We say yes far too many times. We take on one more committee, help with one more initiative, or continue one more tradition "because it's always been done." Instead of subtracting, we keep stacking: this year, on top of last year, on top of the year before that. We are adding tasks to an already full inbox.
Then February hits, and the new idea fizzles. Not because it was a bad idea — but because it's getting about 5% of your energy, while everything else is still fighting over the other 95%.
I say, LET'S QUIT – not our jobs, just the parts that are unproductive and done just because that's the way they have always been done.
You may feel guilt because stopping feels like quitting, and music educators don't like quitting. We teach endurance. We teach grit. We like surviving on caffeine and adrenaline.
But we're not quitting ON kids, we're, quitting FOR kids.
Let's quit the things that keep us from studying your scores, listening to recordings, and creating great lesson plans.
Let's quit on the things that keep us from spending time with a colleagues, reading books, and starting a leadership team.
Let's quit on things that keep us from practicing our instrument, posting a motivational message and watching YouTube video son oboe pedagogy. Just kidding. Don't do that.
Quit the things that don't matter and start doing the things that do.
Jobs didn't save Apple by doing more; he saved it by doing less. By cutting ruthlessly until what remained could actually be great. Addition feels productive. Subtraction feels uncomfortable. But addition without subtraction is just accumulation — and accumulation without focus produces nothing exceptional.
Goals and growth need space. Not just on your calendar, but in your brain. And the only way to make that space is to let something else go, which can eventually create a feeling of control and calmness.
Here's the real 'quit list'-the items that, when removed, create space for what truly matters in your teaching and life.
The thing you wouldn't start today if it didn't already exist.
The commitment you keep out of guilt.
The project that made sense two years ago, but no longer does.
The "tradition" that no longer serves your students — or you.
That's the list that matters.
Jobs cut 70% so the remaining 30% could be exceptional. Most of us are trying to add 30% while keeping 100%. Something has to give.
So write the list. I'm serious - get out a pad of white legal paper and write down everything you do for the next 48 hours. Then, stop or delegate at least one thing this week to free up space for what matters most.
Not because you're quitting, but because you need space to start.
Quitting is a New Year's resolution we can all keep.
Have a great week quitters!
Scott