Too many people think up a few weak resolutions and tell a few friends.  Things such as “I’m gonna lose weight this year” or “I’ll stop smoking this year” or even “I’ll try and get a better job this year”.  As we all know only too well, this is precisely the type of resolution that rarely makes it past the end of January!  As a side note, you might be interested to know that more people sign up for gym membership in January than at any other time of the year, but only a tiny percentage are still regular attendees by February – even though most gyms now demand a 12 month contract!

What’s Wrong with These Resolutions?

There are a few things that jump out straight away:

• In most cases, they’re not written down.  The simple act of making a written commitment to yourself can have a dramatic impact on whether or not you succeed.
• They’re vague!  In my post on setting SMART goals, I talked about why it’s important to not only be very precise about what the goal is (i.e. how much weight to lose) but also to set a specific deadline.  With no specific timeframe, you sub-consciously set the end of the year as the target, which is way too far off to be effective!
• They are often spur of the moment, random thoughts based on the way the person making the resolution is feeling on that particular day!

How Should We Make New Years Resolutions?

In my opinion, what most people think of as New Years Resolutions is what we in the personal development field would consider as “goals”.  Since we should be setting these anyway in line with our desired direction in life, I prefer to think of resolution setting as a checkpoint.  It’s a time to review our goals and our direction, but more importantly, it’s an opportunity to reflect on our attitude.

I propose that we all make a New Years Resolution to have a more positive, focused attitude in the coming year than we had in the previous.  If we all achieve this, then we’ll all climb to new levels of success in 2010 and make this our best year ever!

If you disagree with me and you’ve set New Years Resolutions this year, please share them in the comments and we’ll see how we can go about supporting you in reaching your goals for the coming year.

You see, goals have got to be laser-focused for them to motivate us.  A goal should be something that we’re driven to achieve.  It should be something that inspires us to take effort in order to reach it.  It shouldn’t simply be an intention or a “nice to have”.

In order to produce good goals, it’s helpful to follow the “SMART” goal setting formula:

Specific – Your goals should always be precise.  Instead of “lose weight” you should think of a precise amount of weight that you want to lose – i.e. “I will lose 20 pounds”.

Measurable – It’s no good being specific if it’s not something that can easily be measured.  Weight is a great example as it can always be measured (even if we’re often reluctant to actually measure it!).  It’s helpful though, if it can be broken down into smaller chunks so that you can measure whether or not you’re on track as you take action towards your final goal.

Achievable – It’s no good setting goals that are simply out of your reach.  Goals are meant to stretch us – not break us!

Realistic – Following on from achievable, the goal needs to be realistic.  If your goal is to earn an extra million dollars next month and you’re currently working as a janitor, then short of a lottery win, it’s simply not going to happen.  The problem here is that your brain is not dumb!  It takes one look at your goal and if it’s completely unrealistic (as opposed to just being a stretch) then it says “not going to happen” and stops even trying.  Trust me – your brain needs to be on side with goal setting!

Timeable – I’ve often heard it said that a goal without a deadline is just a wish.  “I’m gonna lose 30 pounds” meets all of our other criteria (assuming I’m at least 30 pounds overweight) but if I don’t specify a date, it could be “before I die” or “within the next 10 years.  Your goal has to be specific, such as “I will increase my income by $50,000 a year by 1^st July 2010”.  Now we’re talking – we have a deadline and our subconscious mind will start working towards a solution.

One tip I can give you here is that once you’ve come up with your SMART goal, write it in the present tense, as your subconscious doesn’t process past or future all that well.  Using the last example above, I would write “Today is the 1^st of July 2010 and I’m thrilled to have increased my annual income by $50,000!”  Notice the emotion that I’ve added, too (“thrilled”) as this helps the brain to be excited about the goal.

Take these tips away and look at your own goals.  Make sure they’re all ‘SMART’ goals and make sure you’re living life to the fullest extent possible.

Why not share some of your goals in the comments?

Many people who talk about goal setting refer to either a Yale study of 1953 or a Harvard study of 1979.  You’ve probably heard about these studies already and if not, you probably will.  You should know though, that they never happened!  The studies from Yale and Harvard are both Urban Legends.  However, due to the prevalence of the resulting statistics in various reference books and training material, the Dominican University has undertaken some research and validated the results quoted in the original stories.

So what are these results?

It’s been shown through study that people who set goals are more likely to achieve success than those who don’t.  This may seem obvious when written down in this way, but more than 90% of the population simply don’t bother.  What isn’t obvious though is that setting written goals and making a public commitment to reach them increases the likelihood of achieving your goals by a considerable factor!

We also know through research that we engage more fully with something when we take action to involve ourselves in it.  With goals, thinking: “I will lose 30 pounds by the end of the year” may be a reasonable goal, but it’s just in your head – in other words, it’s a daydream!  However, as soon as you write your goal on paper, you automatically become more involved.

Try it:

Think of a goal that you’d like to achieve – preferably one that would be a stretch.  Consider how you feel whilst it’s just in your head.  Now write it down and put a date against it when you plan to hit the goal.  Feels more scary now, doesn’t it?  Now go and tell your best friend what that goal is, and ask them to hold you accountable!

It’s that last step that gives us the real power in goals.  The more people you tell about your goal, the more your subconscious mind will push you to achieve it in order to keep your actions congruent with the words that you’re saying, the words that you’re reading (you do read your goals every day, don’t you?) and the thoughts and images that are going through our minds relating to the success that we’re anticipating.

I would encourage you, if you don’t already, to start embracing the full potential that goals can bring into your life by writing them down, setting a deadline, then broadcasting them to your world.  If you do this, you’ll achieve more than you ever thought possible and you’ll come to appreciate just why goals are so important to success.