New Year’s Goals that Work
Every year people set New Year’s Resolutions and every year they forget about them within a couple of weeks. The average person doesn’t even make it to 1 month post New Years on working toward a goal.
What is the reason for this? As an expert in human behavior it is obvious that these people are not truly committed to these goals. Also the goals themselves are not crafted in a way that will drive the goal setter toward achievement. The “resolutions” are generally not specific. The fact is that the most well defined goals are the easiest to achieve. Take for example stopping smoking. This is one specific habit and so once you add a time frame with the day you will stop and you commit to it you will stop smoking.
The commitment to achieving the goal is the other key to success. This is the part where I see the most problems. It is not possible to totally commit to 10 goals at once. In fact 3 goals is the maximum that should be set at any given time in order for them to be achieved. If you have a goal to lose weight, spend more time with family, exercise more. Those three goals will require a large investment of time in order to achieve.
So how do you write achievable goals? I like to use a modified SMART goals format.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timed
- Inspired
I added the inspired because I find that without having an emotional connection or true commitment to having the goal you will not achieve it. By setting goals that can be achieved and connecting to the feeling of having a specific goal you make the process of change smoother and take the guess work out of effective goal setting.
