Each January, the start of a new year inspires us all to imagine the ways in which we can change over the next 12 months to be happier, healthier, more productive people. It’s exciting to set goals and to imagine ways to make our lives more enjoyable, but this initial enthusiasm and commitment often fizzles within a few weeks. Most of us have every intention of following through on our New Year’s resolutions, so why don’t we stick to them? Here are a few ways to make better resolutions and achieve your goals in 2016.
Many of us create long lists of the ways we are going to change in the heat of an inspired moment. Having multiple resolutions can be daunting, and can feel discouraging when we look at our current habits. Setting fewer goals can help make resolutions more manageable, and prevent us from feeling overwhelmed when we realize we’ve tried to change our lives overnight. Pick one or two things that are really important to you to change or adjust this year, and think about why you want them. Goals that are motivated internally are much easier to stick to because you can always remember why you’re doing it; goals that are motivated by someone else’s wants, or by what you think is expected of you, are more likely to fall by the wayside because your commitment to the goal is not a commitment to yourself.
Setting “SMART” goals is a tool often used in organizations to make goals more attainable. SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound. These qualities will help you to determine not only what you’re looking for, but how you’re going to get there and how you’ll know when you’ve achieved it. A common resolution is to eat healthier, but this concept can become a bit hazy in application. When you apply the SMART criteria, however, you can determine a much clearer idea of what your goal entails. For example, to make a goal of healthy eating more specific, consider areas of your diet that could use improvement. This can mean either eliminating certain foods from your diet, or adding more of certain food groups like fruits and vegetables.
Measurable aspects of your goals are easiest when they involve numbers. For example, if you set your goal to include seven servings of fruit or vegetables each day, you can easily determine if you have met this goal or not. This is the minimum recommended serving from Canada’s Food Guide, so this is a great step towards an overall goal of healthier eating and means that it is definitely achievable.
Focusing on the results can help to keep you motivated to reach your goal. In this instance, increased servings of fruits and vegetables have lots of benefits to your health and can contribute to increased energy throughout the day and fewer cravings, all of which are positive feelings that reflect the results of your goal.
Setting a time limit is a helpful measure only when your goal is not a lifestyle change, or if it is something that is not sustainable in the long-term. The example of increased fruit and vegetable intake is a great lifestyle choice that doesn’t need to be limited by time, and would actually be better to continue in your future. For goals around lifestyle changes, studies have shown that it takes three weeks to form a habit. This can be a helpful time measurement when you’re trying to form a new habit as part of a resolution: track your fruit and vegetable intake each day for three weeks. This will allow you to look back over your progress and will also keep you aware of your resolution each day as you record it. For the first three weeks, each serving will be a conscious choice, but once you’re in the habit, it will be easier to maintain these healthy practices.
The important thing about resolutions is to make sure that it’s something that you want, and that you are able to realistically expect to achieve your goal. When we set standards for ourselves that are too high, we set ourselves up for defeat and this can be discouraging when setting goals in the future. Set yourself up to experience success, and work towards your goal in small, manageable steps. Setting long-term and short-term goals can be helpful in terms of remembering why you’re making these changes in your daily life, and tracking your progress can be a great reminder of how far you’ve come.