Forget the New Years Resolution
It’s January 2022, the past two years have gone by in a bit of a fog. This year, though like every other year you’ve told yourself things will be different. You’ve set yourself a new year’s resolution and this time it will be different. You are going to follow through on it. That gym membership you just bought, the new piece of exercise equipment or maybe it’s quitting something, changing something or starting something new.
But then April rolls around and that New Years resolution has long been forgotten, the gym membership hasn’t been touched in weeks, the exercise equipment is sitting under a pile of dust and your old habits that you “resolved to change” haven’t changed one bit.
Personally, I’m proud to say a New Year’s resolution I’ve been able to stay committed to for several years now was to never set a New Years resolution again. The easiest and most effective one to set and keep!
While it’s been easy to not set a New Years resolution, this year I realized some key challenges when it comes to New Years resolutions:
1. They are often too broad, focus on too long of a period (12months) as they are not reviewed often. This frequently leads to New years resolutions or goals failing within 4 months or less of setting them.
2. Some people may use the common SMART acronym (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time bound). I have found it’s too complicated and they spend more time trying to understand the model than they do creating a goal they can achieve.
You might be wondering, ok so what should I do then? Well, I’m sorry to say I don’t have a silver bullet or one size fit’s all solution. However, as Chef Michael Smith says, “A recipe is just a guide, take it make it your own”. So here is my guide to help you set better goals that you can achieve.
1. Set a destination
First thing you should do is set up where it is you want to be at the end of the year. The idea here is to paint a picture of what success would look like for you. For example, maybe it’s something along the lines of “Losing 20lbs to reach my ultimate goal weight, feel good and increase my overall wellbeing”. Or maybe you want to learn something new. The key here is this goal should be something a little more challenging than something you can accomplish easily. Think of it like a multi month trip that will have multiple stops along the way.
2. Break the Goal Down
You know what you want to achieve by the end of the year, the best way to ensure you will be successful is to break it down into smaller bite size pieces. For example we are looking to lose weight and buy a gym membership, go on a diet and start some whole new way of living your chances of success might not be that great. Instead, if you break your losing weight and getting healthy goal down into smaller manageable pieces that you can focus on as monthly or quarterly goals you are more like to achieve them. Say in quarter 1 you focus on healthy eating as your overall goal. But break it down even further to a meal plan, types of food and a phased approach to reaching your destination instead of cold turkey. Think of it like getting a degree, you don’t take all 4 years of school at once, you build upon the knowledge year after year, and we can employ the same idea here.
3. Set Checkpoints
Now that we have our overall goal, broken in down into smaller goals to build up to our destination, the next step is to set checkpoints. In the earlier point I mentioned the idea of creating quarterly or monthly goals. The same idea would apply here. You can set goals, but if you don’t review or check in on them regularly, how effective will they be? Your checkpoints can be set to an interval that best suits you. But in the beginning, I recommend doing them at least weekly to help you build the habit of setting and reviewing your goals. This is a great opportunity to check progress, reset and realign any goals that may no longer be relevant.
While many people tend to set New Years resolutions, they are rarely successful and often fail. Instead, consider coming up with a plan for what you’d like to see yourself at the end of the year. Then work back word, create smaller “micro goals” that will build progress toward your destination at the end of the year. Review your micro goals frequently and if life throws you a curveball and your destination changes. Maybe you accomplish one or more micro goals, or even reach your destination before the end of the year. Don’t be afraid to create new goals. At the end of the day, a goal that is not achievable is just a dream. So why not stop living the dream and live your best life today and create a plan that works for you.