Creating Goals and Following through on New Year’s Resolutions
Creating goals is one of the most common traditions to welcome in the new year. From hitting the gym more to picking up a new hobby, the New Year’s fresh start is the perfect reason to create big goals for yourself to achieve.
Most new year’s resolutions don’t make it to the end of the year, but that doesn’t mean yours is doomed to fail. The key to ensuring that you follow through on your goals is all about how you reflect on what you want and how you create your resolutions.
The secret to setting New Year’s resolutions you can achieve is being intentional about which ones you choose for yourself in the new year. Here are tips on choosing which goals to make and achieve to set you up for a prosperous new year.
Setting New Year’s Resolutions
It might be challenging to set a goal for the new year that is as realistic as it is ambitious. People often drop their New Year’s resolutions within just a few months.
Before sitting down to write your goals, take some time to thoroughly reflect on your past year, highlighting any accomplishments that you achieved or didn’t achieve, your favorite memories, and other outstanding moments. An excellent way to start this process is to rate your past year in a journal, noting your feelings about recent events. There are many good journal prompts that can help you reflect on how you felt in the past year to prepare you for the new one.
After you reflect, you’ll most likely have a better idea of what you think is currently missing from your life and what you would like to work toward accomplishing. Realizing you didn’t achieve certain goals can be disappointing, but we’ve all been there. Let this motivate you to do better in the upcoming months.
One of the best strategies to achieve your New Year’s goals is to set SMART goals. This acronym is a convenient tactic used by business and fitness professionals alike, making achieving goals more doable and can be especially useful for high school students with academic goals.
SMART stands for:
● Specific
Make your goals specific. Using “who, what, when, where, and why” can help you narrow down the specifics of your goals. Vague and general goals are much less effective for achievability.
● Measurable
Sometimes we view our journey in only two stages: failure, success. Plan some definite way of measuring your goals. Consider how you’re going to measure your progress and what your metrics will be. Make things easier by using a journal or a phone app to stay on task and reinforce your progress.
● Attainable
Attainable means making sure your goals are created with your time and skill level in mind. Your goals are attainable if they are within your reach and can be achieved with your tools, resources, time, and skills. Creating goals that are too lofty is a sure way to quit within the first few months after setting a goal.
● Relevant
Always create goals that are relevant to your future. Ultimately, your goals should be important to you and should not derive from self-hate or spontaneity. When you think hard about what you want for your future and make goals that align with it, your goals are more likely to endure.
● Timely
Creating deadlines for goals or small steps helps you achieve them with more consistency and discipline. Figure out your deadline, why you want to achieve it in this timeframe, and how realistic and achievable it is. Celebrating small wins along the way is a powerful tool to ensure gradual progress.
For example, one of your New Year’s resolutions might be to exercise more. If you set a non-SMART goal, you might simply say that you’d like to exercise regularly in the new year. By using the SMART acronym, you can alter your goal to something more specific and measurable, like exercising for 30 minutes three times a week.
There’s no shame in adjusting your goals either. If you feel like you should tweak your resolutions along the way, feel free to adjust your goals accordingly.
Creating SMART goals is perhaps the most critical strategy for creating ambitious yet realistic goals. However, there are other strategies to develop and achieve your New Year’s resolutions. Whether this might be making your plans public or creating smaller goals, different strategies will help different people.
If you are struggling with forming a SMART goal or would like to begin with a solid foundation, you can use this free SMART goals template to get started on your goals for the new year.
Following through on Your New Year’s Goals
Creating achievable goals is the first step to succeeding in the new year. The next step is to follow through with them. It might be daunting, but there are several strategies you can implement in the new year that will help you stay consistent.
Write Down Your Goals
Writing down your goals can give you the accountability you need to achieve them. Whether you choose to jot them down in a journal or scrawl them across your bathroom mirror, writing your goals can help you stay focused.
Celebrate Small Wins
You are more likely to become discouraged if you focus only on the end goal. It’s important to celebrate the small wins and recognize that you’re making gradual progress. Mini-wins can be marked by creating smaller milestones and rewarding yourself every time you reach them.
Have Fun
When you focus on the destination, not the journey, you’ll hate the process of reaching your goals. If your goal is to exercise more often, you don’t have to run every day if you hate running. Choose to achieve your goals through methods you actually enjoy.
When you’re having fun, you’re less likely to give up before you get there.
Download your SMART goals template today and make creating New Year’s goals easier!