Tips for setting goals for New Year

There is famous song in Spanish by Joan Manuel Serrat that says, “Walker, there is never a path, you open the path as you walk.” We all have dreams and goals and they guide us through our lives; they become our map on the way. For some reason the beginning of a new year is for many of us the time to set or to review them. Far from being a new trend, this is in fact a very old tradition. It is said that it was started by the Mesopotamians at the down of civilization. So we in the 21st century continue with the tradition of goal setting or new-year resolutions.

What are resolutions?

We are not always sure what resolutions mean in real terms, but it can mean desires or goals for some people. Desires are those things that we want or would like to have, goals are those things we are willing to work to have. Do you have desires, dreams or goals? It is OK to have all of them.

A wish will read something like this: I would like to go to Paris this year.
An undefined resolution: I will go to London this year.
A goal (or resolution) will be something like this: I will go to Namibia in the summer of this year for three weeks.

How to reach your goal or resolution?

The way companies do it is through business plans or execution plans and you can take the same approach for your goals. These are the main elements: Define your goal. Assess what you have and what you need to reach your goal. Establish milestones to measure your progress and feed new information to keep up with changes in your life. Goals, as business plans, need to be put in writing and reviewed often. Let us take a closer look at these elements:

1. You need to define the goal in specific terms so you can measure your progress. Example: Go to Utila in the spring for three weeks.
2. Needs assessment. Determine what will you need in order to go to Barbados. You will need: money, time, and air ticket, someone to take care of your while you are there. How much money will you need? Perhaps you do not know. Well, you have to find out to see if this is a project you can take. Let’s assume you did some research on the Internet, you visited online travel sites and determined that you need at least $3,000 to be in St Lucia for 3 weeks on a moderate budget.
3. Assets assessment. What do you have on hand? Vacation time available, $1,000, and a promise that your parents will take care of your home while you are out. You also know now that you are $2,000 short of cash. What can you do? You can save some money, you can borrow money or you can postpone your trip. Let’s say you decide to go and you will manage to get the money.
4. Action plan. Now you are going to determine the logistics of the trip: how to get a good price for the air ticket, what types of hotels are available, etc. So you do more research, visit several travel websites and decide that by March 28, you would have completed your research and have a clear idea of the options. In April, you would like to start to research the activities that Cancun offers during that time of the year and you will buy a language book to learn some French. By August, you will need to buy the ticket to get a good price and on and on. This is an action plan. It has specific activities at specific times.
5. Measure. What if you are running late with your goals? Well, how are you going to know if you are running late? This is why we need to be able to measure our activities. For example, if you want to lose weight (probably the most popular New Year resolution) you have to have clear milestones. One of this could be: lose 2 pounds a month. Control measurement: step up on the scale twice a month and monitor your progress. If you are not losing weight you must have a plan in place to correct that.
6. Retro-feeding. Every two weeks read your goals and evaluate progress. If circumstances have changed, the goals maybe modified or adjusted to the new reality. Continuing with the Paris trip example the person may have an unexpected big expense and she can not have the money ready by August, when she was planning to travel. In that case, she changes the plan and moves it to go in November. Your goals may change and this is OK and some of them may need to be dropped altogether. That is also fine.

If you do not do research, do not develop an action plan and do not take corrective measurements as needed, the possibilities to reach your goals are very low. When you are accountable to yourself and organize that way, you can reach many goals. This is the reason people who attend support groups to lose weight are more successful than those who don’t. It may look like work, but goal setting can be fun and once you reach your goal, you will feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment and you will be motivated to reach higher goals.

Have a great time setting goals and reaching them.

Recommended link: Better lifestyle resources