New year resolutions are goals a person wants to achieve within a year and are supposed to be accompanied with mapped out plans to follow.
They are like a guide or guard to how we live our lives every day of the year and how we how would want the year to end up for us or where we would like to be at the end of the year.
Goals help to trigger new behaviors and help you sustain a momentum in life.
You see, when you have a goal in life, it helps you align your focus and keeps you disciplined till that goal is achieved.
Basically, new year's resolution is meant to improve your life year in year out.
You ought to get better in one area of life at least each year. That's how we make progress in life.
But unfortunately, every year, I hear people say new year's resolutions are rubbish and impossible to go by.
Certain people follow this line of people or just follow the crowd and conclude that new year resolutions are all bullshit.
Among those who believe new year resolutions don't work are those who gave up even before they tried.
Those who try but give up along the way because they either lost sight of their goals or got tired trying.
There are also those who do not see the need to have certain changes in their lives at least by the end of the year.
And finally those who do not really know what a new year's resolution is all about before even trying to set one.
Such people are hardly motivated or see reasons why they should set goals for themselves to achieve by the end of each year.
They are not ready to compromise even a little bit of pleasure to reach a goal. They just want to remain at their comfort zone year in year out.
It is most likely that these people see new year resolutions as mere talks. They say things like, no smoking this year, I will loose weight this year, no much hanging out and all sorts without proper means or plans put in place to ensure their goals are achieved.
This is why only few people who set goals for themselves achieve their goals by the end of the year and then make progress in life being where they pictured themselves to be by the end of the year.
TWO MAJOR REASONS WHY NEW RESOLUTIONS DON'T WORK FOR CERTAIN PEOPLE
1. NO STRONG REASON : In order to have an effective new year resolution, you need to have a strong reason behind that resolution.
If you say yo want to stop smoking or drinking alcohol this year, what's the strong reason behind it? Is it because of your health, because it consumes your finances more than anything else in your life or that it makes you do stupid and embarrassing things when you are under it's influence?
If your new year's resolution is to loose some weight, what's your strong reason behind it? Is it to look fit, good and smart or for health reasons?
If your goal is to have some savings this year, what's the reason behind it? Is it to purchase something of importance to you that you have been longing for for long, to set up a business that you have always dreamed of for long, to have an investment or to reduce how you spend money unnecessarily?
If your goal is to read at least a book or two a month, is your reason behind reading to gain more knowledge and become more enlightened, educated or to become a better person in life?
If your goal is to have a new job, what's your reason behind it? to advance in life, improve your work experience, gain more insight, skills and knowledge?
In order to have a desired change in life, you must have a strong reason why you desire a change else nothing would work for you.
But unfortunately, certain people just make resolutions because everyone one is making them without a strong reason attached to what they say and want.
2. S.M.A.R.T GOALS : Another reason why new year's resolutions don't work for certain people is because, they fail to set what George T. Doran calls S.MA.R.T goals but rather set unrealistic goals.
When your goals are not set S.M.A.R.T, you end up working so hard with little or nothing to show for all your efforts. That is why people see new year's resolution as unrealistic because they tried and failed.
Setting S.M.A.R.T goals helps you clarify your ideas, aligns your focus with your ideas and helps you maximize every resource (time, money, human etc) effectively enabling you to achieve what you desire to achieve in a given period of time.
Lets see what setting S.M.A.R.T goals is all about using me as an example.
- S - (SPECIFIC GOALS) : Ensure to make your goals specific enough by keeping them simple and clear of enough for you to be able to achieve. For instance, one of my goals concerning my blogging is to be able to reach a larger audience. For it to grow by the day. That is a clear and specific goal I have set set for myself.
- M - (MEASURABLE GOALS) - Your goal should be measurable for you to accomplish. Measurable in the sense that you can track the success and progress of your goal from time to time. Desiring to see my blog grow and reach a larger audience keeps me motivated to track it's progress. Each time I publish a post or an article, I always come back to check the number of people that viewed or read the post. I never get tired in viewing the progress of my blog. I can even see the number of countries where it is or was viewed from. Seeing the growth of visitors to my blog keeps me motivated in pursuing my goal.
- A - (ACHIEVABLE GOALS) - Every goal you set, ensure it is achievable. Let it be realistic enough for you to be able to achieve. Achievable in the sense that you at least have certain resources available to you to help you achieve your goal? All resources might not be available but most should that even when you stretch yourself so much, its still possible to achieve. Now, to my blogging goal which is to reach a larger audience, what is needed for me to reach a larger audience? I need a laptop, I need time, I need ideas and I even need to stay motivated (⌣). These are things I know I need to keep my goal active. If for instance, I do not have a laptop yet, my smart phone should be ready to do justice (as I write this now, my laptop is faulty and under repairs yet I'm blogging because my goal is achievable). I need to create time to be able to blog. I have a time consuming job but my goal is realistic enough that I need to create time to write. I also need to read books, articles and listen to well known speakers in same line to draw inspiration from and also stay motivated.
- R -(RELEVANT GOALS) - Your goal should be relevant not just to you but to people around you as well when finally achieved. It should be able to affect lives around you positively and not just yours. Now, what's the relevance of my goal in wanting to reach a larger audience? The answer is to impact lives, inspire and motivate people live through life's challenges coming out stronger and better living the life God has ordained for them to live. The relevance is people oriented but the goal is mine to achieve.
- T - (TIME BOUND GOALS) - Every goal set should be time bound in the sense that, there should be a fixed time to achieve a set goal. Having a time fixed goal keeps you focused and prevents you from procrastinating. In order to reach a larger audience through my blogging career, I need to keep writing and for me to do this, the sub-goal for me is to publish at least once a week to help me reach the ultimate goal (reaching a larger audience). There are weeks I even write 3 articles and becomes a bonus for me and they always help in weeks I get too busy to write or lack what to write so the bonus articles come in handy for me. If your goal is to loose a certain amount of pounds by the end of the year, you must decide to loose smaller amounts either everyday or every week to get you to your ultimate goal.
Quote for the day - "Success people focus on what they can do now to create a better tomorrow."
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