New Year's Resolutions: Some Things to Remember for All Goals

With the New Year, it’s tradition to set some resolutions. And while many people know that “eat better” or “sleep more” aren’t complete goals, it can be difficult to set good, solid goals, especially when you have the entire year to attempt them.

While “quit smoking” is certainly a laudable desire, it isn’t necessarily a good goal to set. The appropriate way to go about quitting smoking (or other similarly ambiguous plans) is to create in-depth goals that focus on the steps necessary to achieve the desired result.

Most resolutions, or even goals, for that matter, are, in essence, lifestyle changes. As such, they will require a great deal of time and effort, education and a concerted behavioral change, and discipline. It is for these reasons that detailed goals are necessary. Details help remind you of the time, effort, and discipline that you’re asking yourself to make. The best way to ensure that your goals have these details (and that you really put some thought into your goals or resolutions) is to set SMART goals.

SMART stands for Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

Specific

Goals need to be detailed about what you’re trying to accomplish. Instead of setting a goal to “Get better grades” or “Do better at work”, you need to set goals like “Earn an A in all of my classes” or “Improve from last year’s performance review score by at least 5%”.

Goals also need to be specific about how you’re going to accomplish them. Have your goal be “Improve diet by adding 1 serving of fruit and 1 serving of vegetables to every lunch.”

Measureable

How can you determine if you’ve accomplished a goal if you have a vague end-point for the task? While some tasks can seem to be black-and-white (like “stop eating desserts” – either you are still eating desserts or you’re not), working toward the total elimination of something can be frustrating because it can feel like you’re not making enough (or any) progress. Instead, set smaller goals with quantifiable aspects. To continue with the dessert goal, an example of a measureable smaller goal would be, “Reduce amount of desserts to 2 per week.”

Achievable

If your resolutions or goals are beyond your reach, you are setting yourself up for failure. Firstly, if you know that you are not going to reach your goal, you may be more inclined to allow yourself to “cheat” and be undisciplined in going after your goal. Secondly, your lifestyle changes motivating these goals were important enough to you to set these goals, so how are you going to feel when you fail to accomplish them?

Realistic

This goes along with the previous section about setting achievable goals. If you are 30, setting a goal to become President of the United States in the next 4 years is not a good goal, since you can’t become President at 30-34 years of age (just one of many reasons this isn’t a good goal).

Time-bound

One of the most important aspects of setting a good goal is to assign a timeframe to it. If you set a goal without specifying how long you’re giving yourself to accomplish this goal, you may not have the motivation to work toward it, you won’t be able to measure its success or failure, and you’re not being as specific as you could be. Instead of “Lose 3-5 pounds by running for 60 minutes 3 times per week and reducing average daily caloric intake by 100 calories”, which is certainly specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic, try “Lose 3-5 pounds of weight this month by running for 60 minutes at least 3 times per week and reducing average daily caloric intake by 100 calories.” Remember, you don’t have to have all of your goals start at the same time!