Learn How to Set New Years Goals
June 10th, 2008 by Dick Ingersoll
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It happens every January. New Year’s goal setting, otherwise knows as New Year’s resolutions. It seems that a large percentage of us receive a burst of inventive energy right after the holidays and set out to set lofty goals for ourselves. We resolve to lose ten pounds, change jobs, or completely change our lives.
What’s wrong with us? Do we have some kind of strange masochistic tendencies that lie hidden in our DNA all year long until January comes around? We must. It’s a sorry reality that New Year’s resolutions are usually temporary if not completely disregarded by February. Are we condemned to and eternal circle of goal setting and failure?
Can we actually make goal setting for the New Year successful? Can we interrupt the chain of miserable failure? Yes, the good news is that we can be successful with our New Year goal setting. We can succeed if we follow a few simple steps.
In goal setting, the first thing you must do is pick goals that are plausible and possible for you. They have to be the proper goals for the right reasons. If you don’t believe that you can accomplish them, then you’re doomed from the beginning. For example, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds this year and you don’t believe you can do it, then you’ve set yourself up for failure.
Effective goal setting has to include thought and deliberation. Think long and hard about what you would like to accomplish. Decide that the goal you have chosen has significance for you and you’re willing to commit to achieving it.
Make your goals realizable but not so low that they lose meaning for you. On the other hand, don’t set them so high that you become disheartened. This is a tricky area of goal setting. The answer is to break your goals down into smaller chunks that you will be able to achieve. For example, if you goal is to lose 10 pounds, then set a reachable goal of one or two pounds a week. This will help keep you motivated.
Another technique for goal setting is to be specific. Set a date that you want to reach a specific goal and then work backward, breaking it down in to smaller chunks. If your New Year’s goal is to “lose weight,” then you’re defeated before you start. It is more powerful to decide that you want to lose ten pounds by March 1st. Stating it this way makes the goal solid and believable to you. You’re a good deal more likely to accomplish a specific goal with a time frame than a vaguely expressed goal.
Write your goals down and post them, so that you see them often. This reinforces your goal setting. You could try standing in front of a mirror and saying your goals out loud every day. This also makes your goals a formal commitment. Don’t give up. Goal setting can help us make positive changes in our lives if we follow a few easy rules.
