As 2020 rolls into action, bringing with it a new decade and a new year, the time has come for everyone to start goal setting and make new years resolutions. The ones that we all have great intentions for, but last about a week. Ever wondered why it’s so rare for all of us to achieve our resolutions? Our intentions are great, but life becomes busy and we forget that we decided the year would be different to last. We write down our goals for the year – “be more healthy”, “drink more water”, “be happier”, “love my job”. But as wonderful as these sound, there’s no way to measure whether or not you’ve achieved them, and no strategies to help you get there! That’s why I have found the best approach to goal setting or new years resolutions is to write SMART goals. These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timed.
SMART goals
Let’s take an example: “Drink more water.”
Instead, let’s turn it into a SMART goal.
Specific: How much water do you want to drink? (ie 2L)
Measurable: Is this a goal you can measure? (ie can you tell at the end of your chosen due date if you have achieved the goal?)
Attainable: Is it an attainable goal?
Realistic: Is this a realistic goal?
Timed: How often do you want to do it? And when will you check-in to see if you have achieved this?
Let’s reword this goal now: I’m going to drink 2L of water every day. (DUE DATE: Dec 2020)
You could even add in the WHY of your goal, to give some extra motivation.
Okay now you have your goal, let’s write down some strategies on how to get there.
- Drink 4 500ml bottles throughout the day to break it up.
- Remember to fill up my drink bottle at night and place it next to my bed so I can have water when I wake up.
- Take a drink bottle with me wherever I go.
If you do this with all of your goals and give yourself small steps to achieve them, you’ll find yourself much more likely to achieve what you wanted to achieve! I highly recommend only having 3-5 goals to start with – once you have more than that, it becomes too many to focus on and you won’t achieve any of them.
Here’s to smashing some big goals in 2020!
