New Year’s Resolutions

It’s a new year, so it must be time for New Year’s Resolutions. Personally, I am a big fan of setting goals. However, New Year’s Resolutions always seem to be set up for failure. Perhaps the reason is that people tend to set big goals for the end of the year. How often has someone said “I want to lose 30 pounds this year.” Whether it is appropriate for the person or not, it is certainly an achievable goal. Reducing your weight by 2.5 pounds per month is a healthy and reasonable amount to aim for. But why do most people fail to reach a goal like this?

There are a number of reasons…

1. In January, December is a very long time away. With such a long timeline, it is easy to put off working on your goal until later. Unfortunately, later often become too late to achieve your goal.
2. Many people want to make big goals for their New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps with the reasoning that a big goal is more worthy for something that may take a full year to achieve. However, it also sets them up for failure when the goal is not reasonable.
3. Change is hard. Whether we like it or not, humans are creatures of habit. It can be hard to reach a life-changing goal, like many New Year’s Resolutions. Losing weight and quitting smoking are two commons resolutions, but they require lifestyle changes and those often require more fortitude than most people realize.

So, how can you meet your New Year’s Resolutions? Two steps that will help are:

First, set SMART goals.
SMART stands for Specific / Measurable / Attainable / Realistic / Timely and SMART goals will help you create a reasonable and achievable objective. As you create your goals, think about them in these terms:

• Specific — be as detailed as possible about what you want to achieve.
• Measurable — how will you know if you have reached your goal? Be sure to include some numbers that you can measure.
• Attainable — given the goal and the timeframe, is it reasonable to expect that will you be able to reach your objective?
• Realistic — when you consider both internal (such as ability) and external (such as the economy) factors, is your expectation realistic?
• Timely — is there a timeframe attached to reaching your goal? Is it suitable for what you are trying to achieve?

Second, create a plan.
Creating goals without a plan to reach them is a recipe for failure. To reach your goals, you will need to determine how to get from Point A to Point B. The plan doesn’t necessarily have to be complex, but it does needs to reflect the various steps along the way and the order in which various activities happen. In addition, it is important to have some checkpoint along the way to see how you are doing and to determine if there is anything you should change before proceeding.

These are two simple — but not necessarily easy — steps to help you reach your goals. Good luck with your New Year’s Resolutions. I’ll keep you posted on what mine are.