Putting More Resolve in your New Year’s Resolutions

If we are like most Americans (88% in one recent poll!), we will make at least one resolution for the New Year. A study from CNNMoney.com found that only 24% of people were successful at keeping their resolution. Why so few?

It has been my experience, and studies have confirmed this, that people are much more successful at keeping resolutions and achieving goals if they have a plan and an accountability partner. An accountability partner is someone who has an interest in our success and helps us get back on track if we start to lag in the pursuit of our goal.  Our plan for goal achievement needs to include the following key components.

Goal Statement: The goal statement provides clarity about what we will do, and by when. A good goal statement is WHY SMART: Written, Harmonious (with our other goals, and with our values, principle, purpose, and vision), Yours (important to us), Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant (to what’s important to us), and Time-bound.

Rewards/Consequences: Rewards are the good things that happen if we keep our resolution or achieve our goal. Consequences are the bad things that happen if we don’t. Rewards and consequences answer the “so what?” question. If we really want to keep a resolution, there must be one or more reasons. Rewards and consequences are the reason we are making the resolution; if the rewards and consequences are not sufficient, we will not keep the resolution. We need to make the list of rewards and consequences as comprehensive as we can. If that list does not pass the “so what?” test, we shouldn’t frustrate ourselves by making that particular resolution, because we probably won’t keep it.

Obstacles: Obstacles are the things that stand in the way of achieving our goal or keeping our resolution. This list also must be comprehensive. We need to take some time on this part of our plan; most people only put down two or three obstacles and miss some important ones. Once we think we have finished the list, we must ask ourselves why we haven’t reached our goal in the past. This may help us uncover a few more obstacles.

Possible Solutions: For each obstacle we have identified, brainstorm two or three possible solutions to that obstacle.  Get creative, maybe even coming up with some ideas that are a little silly or crazy. These ideas might stimulate practical or actionable ideas.

Action Steps: Now is the time to get more practical. Based on the ideas that we have come up with for possible solutions, which ones are we going to put into action to help us keep our resolution or reach our goal? What specific things are we going to do?

Date: When are we going to do the actions or complete the action steps we have decided upon? Some action steps are one-time activities with a deadline, but some will be milestones or checkpoints for ongoing activities. In either case, we need to set dates for completing action steps. As an output from this part of the planning process, we should be scheduling activities and milestones in our calendaring system.  It is crucial that we make these activities firm appointments in our calendar, don’t skip them unless it is a real emergency, and reschedule these activities if they get pre-empted for some reason.

Review and Revise: Now that we have developed our goal achievement plan, we need to review it on a regular basis, and revise when necessary. This will help keep us on course, and help us make any changes in our plan needed to get the results we want.

Keep Trying: A study conducted by Elizabeth Miller, a University of Washington doctoral candidate in psychology, showed that persistence can pay off. Of the people who successfully achieved their top resolution, only 40 percent of them did so on the first attempt. The rest made multiple tries, with 17 percent finally succeeding after more than six attempts.

For more information on defining and achieving your goals, contact me at dsmith@LEADprofessionals.net