Benjamin.my … and his miscellaneous takes on life.

4 Easy Steps To Setting Achievable Resolution And Goals

Another new year has dawned upon us. Apart from attending parties and recovering from your hang over, have you done the most important thing for the year yet like creating a list of your resolutions or goals for the upcoming year? Most of us would have no doubt have a brief idea of what we would like to achieve in the coming new year. Unless goals are created in an empowering way, they are nothing but a fleeting idea. True goal, act as a signpost pointing you towards the ultimate reward that you have desired.

Here in this article, the term Resolution refers to the ultimate goal of the year, where as the term Goal refers to the mini-steps leading to your Resolution.

Only 1 Resolution For The Year

The most common mistake everybody does, is creating list of resolutions. The list would contain so many things that a person would love to improve on in the coming year that he wouldn't be able to remember any of them without the list. My advice is, don't do that!

Stick with only 1 resolution. Decide which area of your life requires the most attention this year, and set a resolution to improve upon it. Sticking with only 1 resolution allows you to focus 110% on it and plan your entire year accordingly without conflict. More importantly, you will remember your resolution through the year and consistently measuring your own progress towards it. That will keep you focused and motivated. :)

Having more than 1 resolution not only create possible conflicts, it also spreads thin your energy and focus. You may end up only making minimal progress in all of them. You may also find yourself more likely to switch your focus to another resolution when times get tough, instead of biting the bullet and pushing right through. As much as all of us wanting maximum results in minimal time, working on 1 thing at a time is THE most efficient way. Try raising the standards instead if you feel that you are not being challenged enough living with only 1 resolution.

Your Resolution Must Be Measurable So That It Can Be Broken Down to Measurable Goals

Your resolution and goals need to be measurable. It is important to be able to determine whether you are there or not. It should only be a yes or no every time you do an evaluation on your progress. Are you there yet? Yes or no? If no, how far are you?

A bad goal would be asking for financial abundance in the upcoming year. How much is abundant for you? $10,000? $100,000? $100 million? Your mind isn't able to compute the end results. For that reason, you will not be able to break down your goal into smaller steps to lead you towards the your resolution.

However if you instead, set a resolution of earning $10,000 monthly by end of the year. Now you can break down the resolution into smaller goals for every month. $2,000 for January, $2,500 for February, $4,000 for March etc. Then through the year, you can measure your own progress against your smaller goals, and adjust accordingly if your progress is slower or faster than anticipated. For example, you would be able to ask yourself if you are earning $2,500 in February, in March, and the answer would be yes or no only.

Being able to measure your progress is very important because if you are slower than anticipated, you will need to find out more ways to accelerate your progress.

What do you have to change to achieve your goals?

This is definitely the most important step in setting achievable goals. Most people forget to ask this question when laying out their resolutions and goals, as if the goals would automatically be accomplished without nothing ever being changed. But we all know that that hardly happens. Hence, you need to ask yourself, what do you have change to achieve your goals?

Say you want to earn $10,000 a month by end of the year, as stated in the example above, what do you have to change? Do you want to get a part-time job, change your existing work, take up a professional course, start looking into investing etc? You may even feel that starting a business is the path to go. Whichever way you choose isn't important. What's most important is that, you must not sit at where you are hoping for a windfall. It doesn't happen.

Depending on your circumstances, the answer may not always be very straight-forward. Then perhaps this question would serve you better: "What am I willing to change to achieve my goals?" Set your bottom line and look out for opportunities. When they come, and if they are not below your bottom line, why not give it a try right? :)

All goals require sacrifices. If you are not willing to change anything, then quite likely you wouldn't be able to accomplish anything by end of the year. How your life is now... is how your life will be if nothing changes.

To put it shortly, the ability to achieve your yearly resolution, ultimately lies in your ability to be committed to the changes that would lead you towards the end result.

Write Everything Down

So you have chosen your one and only resolution for the year. It is measurable, and you have further broken it down into goals to be achieved for the 12 months of the year. You have also asked yourself the most important question, what do you have to change in order to succeed, and you have figured out a pretty good answer to that question. What's next? Write everything down!

It is important to stay committed to your decisions made regarding your resolution and goals. You can't stay committed if you start forgetting tiny bits of them. Write everything down in your journal, in a piece of card, in a place where you are sure that you would keep it for the rest of the year, then refer to your notes every now and then. You may find it helpful to put up a copy of these notes on walls where you frequent, just to remind yourself of your resolutions and goals through the year.

These notes that you jot down, will be your judge. Every month, take out the notes and ask yourself if you have achieved the monthly goal. Yes or no? Evaluate if you have been sticking with the changes that you have decided earlier on as required. Make sure that everything is on track. :)

Without these notes to hold you accountable, you may find yourself straying away from your goals unconsciously and the next minute before you realize, you are in another new year setting another list of goals to be achieved without the ones before being accomplished first.

So there you go. :) Happy New Year, and may all your resolution and goals come true!