Every New Year people make new resolutions to improve their lives like going to the gym, eating healthy, spending more time with the family, and the list goes on. But by February 1st, most of those resolutions are out the window. There are many reasons people fail to maintain these goals from setting unrealistic goals to choosing goals that are at odds with one’s lifestyle and values. The key to being successful at achieving your goals is threefold: 1) align goals with your needs and values, 2) use effective goal strategies-SMART goals 3) track progress to evaluate and revise goals.
Align goals with your needs and values. Too often goals are set to accomplish things that we have been dreading. Maybe you really value your health and want to exercise more often. But if you hate going to the gym, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll ever succeed at making this a regular routine. Rather, you should evaluate how you can accomplish this goal doing activities that fit with your values and interests. For someone who is a very social person, they could make exercise a group activity. Another person might be curious by nature and loves to learn new things, so they would choose to learn a new sport. Aligning your goals to fit your personality and lifestyle makes goal setting fun, interesting, more likely to succeed, and thus provides more motivation to help you accomplish your goals.
Use effective goal strategies—SMART goals. You may have heard this acronym before, but knowing exactly what it means is vital to effectively and efficiently achieving goals.
SPECIFIC: The goal must be very specific to help give you direction and so that you can evaluate your performance. An example of a general goal is “Be more productive at work”, whereas a specific goal would be “Close my office door from 9am-11am every day and reserve this time to work on high-priority, time-intensive projects”.
MEASURABLE: You need to have concrete objectives to measure your progress toward the goal. Keep in mind this will often change over time. For example in the first week you might want to exercise 3 days for 20 minutes, and then in week two increase the time to 30 minutes.
ATTAINABLE: The goal must be within your reach, yet it should also be a stretch. You want to make it challenging to keep you motivated, but not too difficult that it’s impossible to attain. As you succeed, you may become more ambitious, confident, and see that you have been setting the bar too low!
REALISTIC: It is important to consider your skills and abilities, as well as resources when setting goals. If you want to spend time pursuing a new goal, that means you’ll have to reduce the amount of time spent on another activity. Remember that it takes time to change and develop new habits. Take small enough steps that it is doable, but don’t make it too easy.
TIMELY: Goals need to have an end in sight, so always determine a target date. Often you will need to plan out the steps needed to accomplish the goal in time, so make sure to set interim deadlines for each step.
Track progress to evaluate and revise goals. Write it down! One of the easiest yet effective strategies to help with goal setting and accomplishment is to have it on paper. The initial goal and plan to accomplish it are a contract that increase accountability. You also need to track your progress, which can serve as both motivation (look what I accomplished this week!), and a gauge of if your plan is realistic. If you are not making good progress, you probably need to lower your standards. But if you are progressing without challenge, you probably need to raise the bar. Once you have evaluated your progress, revise goals as necessary and set new goals. This is an ongoing process because once you’ve attained a goal, you need a new goal to keep you moving forward!