Hi everyone, hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.
I wanted to take this opportunity to write about goals for the new year.
So many of us talk about new year’s resolutions, only to keep them up for about 2 weeks before quitting. What exactly is it that means so many of us fail? What is the difference between the ones that succeed Vs the ones that give up?
I think the main thing with new year’s resolutions is you have to see if they are S.M.A.R.T goals or not. As in: Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Realistic and Time. Do I have a specific goal in mind? Or is it a rough idea? How will I measure this goal? How will I achieve this goal exactly? Is this goal realistic? Could I actually achieve it? And what time frame am I setting myself to achieve it by? If our goals aren’t thought through in this way they become much harder to achieve.
For example. Someone who’s goal is “I want to quit smoking” as a new year resolution, but with absolutely no clue how to do it, has a lower success rate. Instead of a goal such as “I’d like to smoke 1 pack a day by next month, by cutting down a cigarette a day.” And the next goal might be only 5 cigarettes a day, 3, etc. Or maybe the goal might be to add patches for a month, and cut the cigarettes out entirely. You see my point about how it must be a specific goal?
Having a thought out plan can make all the difference when it comes to achieving our goals. This is something most don’t think of in January.
That said, I don’t like to make new year’s resolutions for exactly this reason. But what I do instead is I look at where I’m at, and where I’d like to be in the coming year. I take stock of things. I write a list of all the things I’d like to do in the coming year. And I S.M.A.R.T goal them. The main reason I don’t make them is because I believe we should all be working on ourselves continuously, nobody is perfect. But we can all review our lives once a month to see if we are on track. I have a notebook I go through with short term goals every month.
Have you set any S.M.A.R.T goals lately? Or are you thinking of changing yours as a result? Let me know!