Setting Goals you can Achieve

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As we ring in the new year, I, like most others, like to set my intentions for the year to come.

It can be pretty discouraging to make the same resolutions year after year only to fail a few months in. It’s as if we look at resolutions as setting ourselves up to fail.

I try to steer clear of broad goals like:

Lose weight
Go on a diet
Save money
Travel

While these things are all great goals to have if they are things you’d like to achieve, telling yourself you want to do them without setting up a plan is setting yourself up for failure.

Resolve to start new habits

Instead I like to focus more on resolving to start (and hopefully stick to) new habits that will result in those more common goals.

They can be as specific as “Go to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6am” or simply “pick a gym and join”. That is a good starting point but you’ll eventually want to put a timestamp on it and a plan in place. Otherwise you’ll end up paying for a membership that goes unused for months until you muster up the energy to get in and cancel it.

For example, rather than telling myself to lose weight my resolution list may look more like:

find a morning and evening routine that works – include gym or workout time
wake up earlier (before the kids) and stretch or do 15 mins of yoga
take the kids for walks 4-5 days per week
invest in a meal planning service like eMeals
use Sundays to prepare healthy food for the week – get a new set of food storage containers!

If your plan is to save more money in the new year, some items for your list may be:

write out a realistic budget (try a calendar budget)
use cash instead of a debit or credit card
find ways to make some extra side cash to put away
have a no spend week/month/year

SMART Goals

A proven method for achieving your goals is to ensure that they meet the S.M.A.R.T. criteria:

Specific

This is why I prefer to focus on the steps rather than the broader goal.

“Save money” seems broad and daunting, but “use cash instead of a debit card” is far more specific and gives me something to focus on and something I can easily achieve in a day – which will help me to feel like I am on the right track!

Measurable

It is important to be able to track your progress on a certain goal. If you are focusing on creating new habits to achieve your goals then you can easily measure your success with a habit tracker (basically a checklist to tick off daily when you’ve completed a task) or a calendar.

Achievable

If you set goals that are achievable and realistic for your abilities and lifestyle you’ll be more likely to succeed. In my example above – setting a plan to take the kids out for a walk 4-5 days per week is more realistic than telling myself to hit the gym everyday.

Could I set a goal to go to the gym everyday? Sure. But I know that won’t last. One day of Dave coming home late from work will throw that right off track and it may not be easy to get back on.

If I set an achievable goal of making sure that 4 out of 7 days of the week we go for a walk that can become a successful habit and inspire me to set more habits and goals.

Relevant

This one should probably come first, but RSMAT isn’t a word.

Make sure the goals you set actually matter to you. Will losing weight improve your life or are you doing it because you feel like it is something you’re supposed to do? Maybe your goal isn’t necessarily to lose weight, but to eat healthier and be more active.

Perhaps your goal isn’t to save money, but to make more money so you can buy something you want. Make sure your goals are relevant to you and that achieving them will actually improve your life.

Time-bound

Give yourself a deadline. Mark it on the calendar.

If you are going to try a no spend month to save some money this year pick a month and mark it on your calendar. Instead of simply saying your goal is to travel more, check your calendar for long weekends where you can plan a short trip and start ahead of time – no more wasted weekends wishing you had hopped in the car and gone camping.

My Resolutions

To be honest with you, at the time of writing this (New Year’s Eve morning) I haven’t fully thought of my resolutions. I do have some idea of my end goals:

Blog consistently and grow my business

Visit new places in Florida

Start getting serious about paying off our student loans

Throughout the day I’ll take some time to plan some habits that will help me achieve these goals by the end of the year and make sure each habit fits the S.M.A.R.T. criteria.

To achieve my blogging goals I’ll need to set up a blog plan for the year, including a calendar and post schedule. I’ll need to write out a list of blog topics to write this year. I’ll make it a goal to get these set up by the end of January.

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Care to share your favorite goal? Drop a comment to inspire other readers on what goals they want to achieve in the upcoming year!

As always, thank you for reading!

Resolve to start new habits