I am publishing this post early so you get to read it before the New Years Resolutions pressure hits. Here’s some help:
This week contains New Years Day which is traditionally a time to assess the last year, choose goals and move forward on that path in our lives. Or more accurately for most, feel bad about what we didn’t achieve last year, pick New Year’s Resolutions regarding what we “should” be doing (often the same recycled from last year’s unattained goals), attempt to reach unrealistic goals for a week or two, then give up, beating ourselves up emotionally for once again failing. Sound familiar?
Quite frankly, I gave up New Year’s Resolutions years ago. Shocked? I gave them up because they don’t work. I do harness that New Year/New You/New Opportunity energy when it is rolling, however. But skip the resolutions and choose good goals, SMART goals, goals that you can actually want to reach and achieve.
This will take some preparation work on your part – that’s why they work. Even though you may desire it -stating a generic goal like “I want to get healthy” or “I want to lose weight” is usually just going to lead to failure, discourage you, and even keep you from reaching goals in the future, since you are training yourself to fail. Different research has shown anywhere from 86% to 92% of people fail at their New Year’s Resolutions. Every year.
So instead of white-knuckling another round of resolutions this year, skip them. Instead, take a look at what you really want to achieve, not what you “should” want to achieve. For instance, quitting smoking is a great goal but requires a lot of work. If you choose it as your resolution because you know it is healthier and others are bugging you about smoking, you will fail.
You have to really want it. You have to build the vehicle to make it happen. If you say you are going to quit because you “should” not because you are fully committed to wanting it, not because you have worked out a plan to make it happen, not because you have a great motivating “why” story – you will fail. And you will have convinced yourself that you cannot do it, sabotaging efforts to quit in the future, when you may want to more.
What do you do then? First assess what areas of your life you feel need some change. If all your goals are about work, other parts of your life like family, health and social can continue to be neglected, leaving you still unhappy, even if you do reach your goal.
Here is a quick and easy 9 question survey to help you see where you want to change. Go with your gut, quick answers are often more honest. All you do is choose a number from 1-10 about how satisfied you are in that area. Probably won’t take 5 minutes. Finished? Success #1!
Second Step: Now that you can see what areas you would most like to improve, choose 3 or 4 that most need it, you care about most, have a quick and easy fix, whatever is motivating you. Do NOT choose every one, believing you can juggle 10 or 20 goals. You may be able to juggle 1 to 3 balls; most cannot juggle more than 5 to 7, and when was the last time you saw a juggler with 10 items? That kind of goal setting is called Quick Pathway to Complete Fail. You can achieve all the goals you really want, just not all at the same time.
So you have picked out a few areas that are most important to you for change. You are ready to change, right? If not, put down the list, back away slowly. Come back when you really want it, when the pain to stay the same is more than the pain to stay the same.
Why you need the Why
Okay, you’ve decided you want to change, you have looked at the balance in your life and picked out a FEW areas most important to you. Now think about what goal you would like to achieve in each area and why. Right now, the most important steps are picking the area of your life, picking a goal, and getting an iron-clad, clear, true-to-you, motivating “WHY”. Without the why, you won’t get it done. Without the why, you won’t keep going when the excitement wears off, the goal is annoying, you doubt yourself, and it seems far away.
The WHY is the powerful engine that will keep you going. For a successful goal, you have to have a WHY that means enough to you, to make it worthwhile. And if you find you don’t have a powerful driving why – it’s probably not the right goal for you. Or not the right time. We want to set you up for success. We also want you to succeed at something you really, really want. Otherwise, even if you achieve it, you won’t really feel successful.
An example of a goal that isn’t right for me: playing the piano. I would love to be able to play the piano, sing along, play at family gatherings. However, I don’t want to spend 30-60 minutes a day practicing. I don’t have any desire to learn musical theory. I don’t want to spend the years it takes to get really good at it. And even if I did, the opportunities to actually use it for enjoyment are few and far between. So although my goal is appropriate, my why won’t move it. Like putting a rubber band motor on a yacht; it might float and drift a little, but it will never get out of the harbor. It might change sometime in the future, but unlikely. I will put my time and energy toward something I care more about.
An example of a goal that isn’t right for me now: learning to speak Spanish. I would love to be able to speak and understand Spanish. I would love to expand the number of people I could engage with both personally and professionally by understanding the language. I love the sound of the spoken language. Being fluent in Spanish would open up more opportunities for me in my career and travel. I learned a very little bit about the language and enjoyed it a few years back. I realize it would take a long time to become as fluent as I would like to be in the language, but I would have lots of opportunities to use it for the rest of my life.
I think it would be fun and exciting, something I have never done before. However, with the goals I am already working on, it keeps getting moved down on my To-Do list. At some point, I likely will apply this Why and the other steps to achieving this goal. However, right now there are other goals with higher priority, so I will put it on the shelf for later consideration.
This still gives me success should I decide to achieve it later, I have not half-tried. We only want to go after the goals we intend to achieve. Not the ones we sort of want. Going after this goal right now would be like trying to drive from New York to California in a gas engine car with one tank of gas. I would not get all the way and would be very disappointed. Later, however, I may have the resources to apply towards this goal.
So sit down with your goals, act like a 5-year-old – keep asking “Why” till you run out of answers. If you are finding you have too many goals, this will help you weed out which ones are: Now, Later, Maybe or Nice Idea-But Not Worth It To Me.
I would suggest you get to 1-3 goals that you really care about, you are excited about working toward And achieving, with a strong WHY to get you through the sloggy/uncomfortable/messy middle. Power Up with your Why. Success! You may have a few more goals if you stagger short, medium and long-term goals. If you haven’t done well with goals in the past, don’t overwhelm yourself, plan to succeed.
Next posting we will tweak those goals for success and explain how to take them from wimpy New Year’s Resolutions to SMART succeeding Goals. We will make them sleeker, speedier, prettier, more powerful and more likely to lead you to success. We are going to take those dull goals and make them SMART! More likely to achieve, more desirable and showing off success.
Again, here are the guideline sheets to get you started:
9 Areas of Goal Setting for a Balanced Life
And in case, you can’t wait for the next post to get started tweaking those goals. But come back for the tutoring on making them SMART:
How To Set S.MA.R.T. Goals This Year
Get those Goal Whys Revving!
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