New Year's resolutions seem designed to be broken: the most popular fail for the simple reason that they are the things people most want to change about themselves and the hardest changes to stick to, because they deal with ingrained habits or personality idiosyncrasies. Give up? Laugh it off? No, the smart thing to do, if a resolution is important, is to do a little goal setting.
Top New Year's Resolutions
According to USA.gov, the following are popular new year resolutions.
- Drink less alcohol
- Get a better education
- Get a better job
- Get fit
- Lose weight
- Manage debt
- Manage stress
- Quit smoking now
- Save money
- Take a trip
- Volunteer to help others
Readers are certain to have their own variations to add to this list, but if they are phrased in this way, they are bound to fail.
Don’t Design a Poor Personal Development Programme
The above New Year's resolutions are woolly, imprecise wishes, because they are do not incorporate sound goal-setting features. Saying “I want to get fit” or “I want to get a better job” carries no more mental weight or sense of purpose that “I want to make six million dollars and retire.” They will always be on a wish list, doomed to fail, because the motivation is not there or the means to achieve or measure results.
If making a New Year's resolution is to mean anything more than breaking open a fortune cookie and reading the slogan, then it must be approached in an entirely different, purposeful way. Each one of the above statements could be turned into a great personal development programme.
Setting Goals for New Year
Don’t wait for someone at the New Year family celebration to say, “What’s your New Year resolution?” That’s when the imprecise, poor goal setting happens. Instead, prepare for the moment right now. The better the preparation and motivation, the better the chance of the resolution working. If it really matters, give it the attention it deserves. A time-honored process for goal setting that is trotted out by seminar presenters and by personal trainers is to apply the SMART principle. The idea may be old-hat but apply it to the personal development goal chosen for a New Year's resolution and it will definitely help.
SMART Goal Setting the New Year's Resolution
The SMART principle simply means apply the acronym to any project. Make the resolution
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant and Realistic
- Time-framed
A glance at the list of resolutions published by USA.gov reveals that none of them meet these criteria. Let’s take a common one – lose weight – and apply the SMART principle. Some settings may have to be adjusted as progress is made down the list.
To make this goal specific: set an amount: I want to lose 10 kgs
Make the goal measurable: Weight loss is one of the easy things to measure – set a date with the bathroom scales. Decide how often and when progress checks will be made.
Make the Goal achievable: If you want to lose 5 kg in a week, commons sense says, it’s not an achievable goal. It would be necessary to shift to a longer time-frame or adjust expectations. It is not achievable if some other aspect of the dieter’s life, such as poor health, might preclude dieting.
Make the Goal relevant and realistic: if the person who wants to lose 10 kgs, already only weighs 50 kg, it’s not relevant or realistic – it is just plain risky.
Make the goal time-framed: This is important. Set a realistic time frame – say 20 weeks – to lose 10 kgs. By all means set a longer time frame – one year to lose 10 kgs. Intermediate goals and progress checks become more important now. If the dieter is satisfied to lose 10 kg over one full year, it makes sense to ensure that approximately 1 kg is lost each month.
In addition to the SMART principle, it is a great idea to force yourself to examine progress at particular times and have a failsafe mechanism in place. For example, have a friend circle a date on their calendar when they must demand to know your results and help you achieve the goal if you have faltered.
Re-state New Years Resolutions as Measurable Goals
The waffly resolution Lose weight could become: I will lose 5 kilos by December 24, 2011, measuring and charting my weight loss on Friday each week. If I find on February 28 that I have not lost a full kilo, I will seek help from my friend Jenny.
Perhaps this all seems like too much trouble. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that people make new years resolutions because they are dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives. What’s the point of complaining year after year and not taking smart steps to make a change. This year’s resolution could be the one that changes your life for good.
