This time of year, we all face the dreaded question. “What are your New Year’s resolutions?” While I find the winter to be a good time for rest and reflection, the pressure to completely revamp your life and meet unrealistic expectations. So how can we change from unrealistic expectations to goals that we can meet?
One of the best ways to make sure we can achieve our goals is using a system called SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. We’ll go over each of these in more detail, but the basic idea is that we’re going to break down the big overwhelming goals into smaller attainable goals.
Specific is step one. We don’t want our goals to be vague because it makes it difficult to know what we’re working towards and if any progress is being made. As an example, instead of saying “Next year I’m going to be healthier,” you could say, “Next year I am going to eat homemade lunches at least three times a week. This helps the goal become less vague and overwhelming.
Measurable is step two. We all want to know if we’re making progress on our goals. So how can you measure that progress? In the above example, we know that the goal is homemade lunches at least 3 times per week. That’s pretty easy to measure. If you have eaten at least one or two homemade lunches that week, then you are making progress.
Achievable is step three. We want to achieve our goal. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have created it. So let’s make the goal something we can reasonably do. While you might want to read 150 books in a year, does that actually work with your life? We all have other responsibilities that we have to meet, so let’s be realistic about what we can accomplish. If you do better than you expected, then that’s wonderful!
Relevant is step four. Our goals should be relevant to what we want to accomplish. If your goal is to read more, then a goal that focuses on trying different restaurants around town isn’t really that relevant or helpful.
Time-bound is step five. Goals shouldn’t go on forever. By keeping your goal in a specific period of time, you can create enthusiasm and drive. If we use the example of reading 150 books in a year, that’s already time-bound to one year.
What if your fear is that you’ll fail? That’s alright. Goals for your life will always be changing, just like you are always changing. Not finishing or not achieving your goal is not failure. Any progress you made while still working on your goal is still progress. Perhaps you didn’t read 150 books in a year, but reading 75 is still an accomplishment to be proud of.
I hope you feel more prepared and confident to set yourself up for success in your New Year’s Resolutions. While goals may never be the easiest thing in the world, because of what they represent, they should be slightly less intimidating than before.
