January 1st is here, which means many of you have already set (or will be looking to set) New Years resolutions. Resolutions get a bad reputation sometimes, but they shouldn’t. You should always strive to improve your life. What gets mocked though is how many yearly goals not only don’t get achieved, but are discarded/forgotten by the time February 1st rolls around.
So how do you avoid becoming a cliche by actually keeping your resolutions? Follow these 5 steps to have a greater chance at hitting your goals…
1. Figure out what your goal is in the 7 major categories of life. These categories are: family, relationships, physical, mental, spiritual, financial, and career.
2. After figuring out what your goals are, ask yourself when each goal should be realistically accomplished. Is it something that can actually be accomplished this year? Maybe it will only take 90 days or maybe it will take 3 years. Either way, if it’s important to you, don’t scrap the idea just because it doesn’t fit into a “yearly” goal timeline. Instead, break the goal down into milestones…in order to achieve Z, you need to get to Y by this date. But in order to achieve Y, you need to get to X by this date. Continue doing this until you have broken it down to what you need to do TODAY.
When each goal is broken down into manageable chunks of what needs to be done, always set a timeline for when you should hit each milestone as well (not just the overarching goal). This will let you know if you’re on track to hitting your yearly goal. If you reach a milestone date and haven’t achieved that milestone yet, it allows you to pivot early enough to still (hopefully) complete your big goal.
3. After figuring out what your goals (and milestones) are and when they can be realistically accomplished, the next thing you need is to have a powerful “why” behind them. Why are you resolving to achieve that thing? Why is that important to you? Will it make you feel better (intrinsic motivation) or is it to impress other people (extrinsic motivation)? Did you come up with it yourself or are you following along with what you think your spouse or your boss wants you to do?
You should be excited to get started, but as you begin to struggle, or when you don’t see results right away, you will be tempted to quit. The voice inside your head will begin to tell you that you didn’t really want that in the first place or that whatever your goal was isn’t really important. That’s just you giving yourself an out. But if you have a “why” behind the “what,” you will be more likely to keep at it when the times get tough. Your “why” should excite you and it should improve your life in some way.
4. Now that you know what your goal is, when you need to achieve it by, and why it is important to you, you need to figure out how you’re going to do it. Once again, it is best to figure this out by breaking it down.
First, you need to have a clearly defined time of day to work on your goals. Look at your goals daily and figure out the time you will work on your goal every single day. Will it be every morning when you wake up, as soon as you get off of work, or right before bed every night? Stay consistent with what time you work on your goals. Make this a habit!
Secondly, you’ll be more effective when you have a dedicated place to work on your goals. Where you will work on achieving your most important next action step for the day? Will your “sacred place” be at the gym, your office, a coffee shop, the basement, etc.? You need to define your work space. Especially now, with so many people working from home, you don’t want to blur the lines between when you’re supposed to be working and when you’re supposed to be spending quality time with your family. If you blur the lines, it will be too easy to not be truly focused on anything (making all aspects of your life suffer).
The last part of the “how” to achieve your goal is to understand what is the ONE thing you need to do today to get you closer to your milestone goal. I discussed this earlier when I mentioned breaking down each goal to the point of what you need to do TODAY to get you to where you need to be for the next milestone…What actions (leading measurements) are important to track every day that predict success for your achievement goals (lagging result)? What is the ONE thing you have to do that day to move you closer to achieving your next milestone? Remember, every journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. You have to take small, consistent action to get to where you want to go.
5. Finally, you need to determine who can help you achieve your goals. This will probably take multiple people (probably at least one person for each goal). Is it a loved one who cares about that particular goal just as much as you do? Is it a friend or co-worker with a similar goal? Or maybe you find a group/community online to help encourage you when you’re down, but hold you accountable as well? No matter what the case, share your goals with others. Saying it out loud and writing it down means that you can’t hide it when you don’t achieve your goals. Take ownership of your goals, of your successes when you hit them, and of your failures if you don’t. The only person who can make you do this is you, but it always helps to have support along the way.
Keep these five things in mind when setting goals/resolutions. Of course, try to make them S.M.A.R.T.E.R. (specific, measurable, actionable, risky, time-keyed, exciting, and relevant) and, again, focus on WHY it is important to you. You need to have a deep intrinsic motivation to do something in order to keep pushing through the tough times.
Good luck and happy new year!