What would a blog in January be if we didn’t touch on New Year’s resolutions? It’s a nice sentiment, but how many people maintain their goals?
In truth, not many.
According to various studies I’ve read, January 12 is the day that more than half the people who make their goals give up! That’s less than two weeks of keeping a resolution! By February, 80% have thrown in the towel.
Now, we can assume that there’s a group of people who make resolutions and have no actual interest in keeping them and then we can look at the people who very much wanted to keep their resolution but didn’t know how.
It all comes down not to the specific goals you set but to how you set them. With these six easy-to-follow tips, hopefully, you’ll be the one-in-five persons who haven’t given up before Valentine’s Day comes around.
1.Make it specific.
Your goal must be well-defined. If your idea of a goal is to “get healthy,” “be a nicer person,” or “make the world a better place,” consider what each of those means. It’s easy to give up on a goal when it’s not specific. Are you going to make the world a better place by consuming less? Volunteering more? You must have a specific idea of what you are striving for if you’re going to have any chance of reaching it.
2. Set a time frame.
If your goal is to find a better job, when do you plan on doing that? If you’re going to join a gym, how much time do you expect to spend there? Goals need time frames attached to them, or they can get lost. Just joining the gym isn’t enough. You need a goal that you’ll visit X times per week and work out for Y minutes. Attaching real-world time frames to your goals will help you reach them easier.
3. Make it measurable.
So you say you want to lose weight? Technically, if you lose one pound, you’ve reached your goal. How much weight do you want to lose? Put a number on it. If your goal is to cut down on smoking, put a number on what cutting down means. Much like with the first tip, you need to spell things out and make your goal specific enough that you know when you’ve reached it.
4. Make it attainable.
You will never have the ability to fly. You probably won’t make a million dollars this year, either, and 2019 will unlikely be the year that Hollywood discovers you. If you make goals for yourself that are unattainable, all it’s going to do is defeat your enthusiasm and make you feel like a failure. Winning the lottery can be a dream, but it shouldn’t be a goal. You must be able to see a finish line if you’re going to succeed.
5. Understand the trade-off.
If you’re going to be spending an hour after work at the gym three times a week, you’ll be replacing whatever activity you were doing during that time. If you were helping your kids with their homework, is that a wise trade-off? Make sure that your goals don’t have a negative effect on other things in your life or you’ll probably find yourself throwing in the towel like so many.
6. Be accountable.
If somebody else knows about your goal – a partner, friend or even life coach – you’re going to be more apt to continue toward that goal. Nobody wants to look like a quitter!
I’d love to hear about the goals and resolutions you’re setting for yourself in 2019! Share them with me and let me know how you’re going to make them stick!