Kemar Meaningful Directions
As we have now made it to the New Year, it is likely that some of us have set New Year’s Resolutions.
However, as past experience may have shown you, these promises you make to yourself at the beginning of each year are often broken or forgotten about as the grind of daily life carries you along, back into old and familiar routines. Don’t worry, only around 19% of people keep their New Year’s Resolutions!
Why do you think this is? It’s because the types of New Year’s Resolutions we often set for ourselves can be unrealistic, unachievable or not linked to our values.
If you have already failed your New Year’s Resolution – don’t despair! Just because you may not have been able to follow through with your resolutions this time around doesn’t mean that it is pointless even trying again. There is a wealth of research that exists showing that if we set goals effectively, we can significantly increase the chances of following through on them. So, you might just need to make your New Year’s Resolution more specific and plan better actions to help achieve your goal.
One way to set goals effectively to ensure that they are more attainable is to make it a S.M.A.R.T goal. This simple acronym for goal-setting is not only going to be helpful for you when making New Year’s Resolutions but also anytime you are wanting to make some changes in your life.
The S.M.A.R.T acronym is described below:
- SPECIFIC: specify the specific actions you will take, when and where you will do so, and who or what is involved. If a goal is vague and non-specific (e.g. ‘I’m going to really be there for my kids every week’) it’s going to be hard to know if you have achieved it or not. So change it to a specific goal (e.g. ‘I’m going to get home at 4pm on Fridays and take the kids to the park to play basketball’).
- MEANINGFUL: The goal should be personally meaningful to you. If you are pursuing something because you are trying to please others, then you are likely to fail. In order to make your goal more meaningful, you need to explicitly link it to your values. For instance, ‘by working on this goal, I will be living my values of being loving and caring.’ If your New Year’s Resolution lacks a sense of meaning and is not genuinely guided by your values, then you will need to set a new one that is.
- ADAPTIVE: Does the goal you have help you to take your life forwards in a direction that, as far as you can predict, is likely to improve the quality of that life? How will this action be adaptive for your life (i.e. make your life better)? What are the likely benefits? If the goal seems likely to have more costs than benefits, then change it. For example, if one of your values is ‘self-care’, and your goal is ‘To work as hard as I can every spare minute of the day’, then clearly this is not going to be sustainable and will end up being maladaptive (i.e. make your life worse). Be clear about the benefits and remind yourself what they are, i.e. “Practicing mindfulness for 10mins everyday will help me perform better in my job and better handle work pressures when they arise.”
- REALISTIC: The goal should be realistically achievable. Is the goal realistic for the resources currently available to you, taking into account your health, competing demands on your time, financial status, energy, social supports, and so on? If not, modify the goal so that it is realistic for the available resources; or else put it to one side and make a new goal. (Of course, the new goal might be to get the necessary resources for the original goal!)
- TIME-BOUND: to increase the specificity of your goal, set a day, date and time for it, and for how long will you do it? If this is not possible, set as accurate a time limit as you can. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. So, if the goal seems too big, make it smaller. Ask yourself: “On a scale of zero to ten, where ten is ‘I’ll definitely do this no matter what’ and zero is ‘There is absolutely no chance I’ll ever do this’ – then how likely are you to actually do this?” If you score less than seven, best to change the goal to something smaller & easier.
And when you have been able to come up with a SMART goal, then don’t forget to tell someone about it. One of the best ways of increasing your chances of achieving your New Year’s Resolutions is to share what you are going to do with others, as this keeps you accountable and more likely to want to follow through on your goal.
And remember, if you get off track or you are struggling to achieve your New Year’s Resolution, firstly you need to acknowledge that imperfections are part of being human, and then try to change the storyline you tell yourself, from “I’m a failure – I can’t do this” to “What can I learn from this, and what might I need to do differently”.
When you set SMART goals you can create clearer, attainable and meaningful goals, and develop the motivation, action plan and support needed to achieve them so that 2022 can be a year that you deserve and desire!
Note: There are variations of the above acronym SMART however this is the one we prefer as it has more of a focus on linking goals to your values which leads to living a more meaningful life!
