Why New Year Resolutions Don’t Survive, And What Can We Do About It
New Year has come, and so have the “New Year Resolutions”. I am sure we all have done it, or still doing it. And we also know that most of our resolutions go for a toss in a few days.
We start serious, follow the new routines and tasks diligently, then start missing and feel frustrated, and then convert it into a joke and forget. To start again the next year.
Why does it happen? Why do our sincere goals and serious efforts fizzle out in a few days? It is because we don’t set good goals to begin with.
What are good goals? What makes them good? And how to set a good goal and achieve it?
A good goal has the following broad characteristics:
1. Clarity
2. Ownership
3. Parameters
4. Targets
5. Timelines
6. Analysis
Let us explore each of these one by one. We will take a common goal which is widely taken, “I want to be physically fitter”. What will each of these characteristics mean for this goal?
1. Clarity
What does being fit mean to you?
Well, it can be a general statement like “I want to feel energetic and focused all the time”, but it means nothing from a goal perspective.
It will be far better if you put in some metrics like:
I would like to run a 10km race this year.
Or
I would like to bring down and maintain my weight to __ kg
Or
I want to do ___ pushups without stopping
Clarity helps in the next steps. You will see how.
2. Ownership
We have a trainer, a gym, sports shoes, the jogging tracks, and the work-life balance, but these can’t be the owners of my goal.
We need to be clear, at the very beginning, without any ambiguity, that the Ownership is with Me, and Me Only. Tell that out loud.
3. Parameters
What are the parameters you will measure to achieve your goal?
Now if being fit is the goal, what will one measure?
We need to measure the parameters which will make us fit.
We may say that we will measure health parameters — like Cholesterol levels or Sugar Levels, as they will show we are fit. But they are outcome parameters, which will show up once we put efforts towards being fit.
So the sample parameters are the number of walking steps OR time spent on cardio exercises or distance of the run. Spend some time defining them early, as you need to follow them through the year. A few suggestions:
- Take a few parameters, not many. A maximum of three will be ideal.
- Make sure you can measure the parameters you take regularly, ideally every day.
- Also, take parameters that you compare against others so that you can have benchmarks.
4. Targets
Once you decide about the parameters, take the targets.
Like No of Steps Walked in a Day
Or
Number of minutes of cardio a day
Or Meters of run a day
5. Timelines
When do we want to achieve our targets?
Ideally, we would like to achieve it every day, but there will be days when we can do more, or less, or nothing at all. Real life is not ideal, so there will be gaps.
So it will be good to take daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly targets.
You can build a stretch, every month the target can be say 2–5% higher than the previous months. Or you can keep it flat, your choice.
6. Analysis
This is the last but most important, analysis. How are you doing vis a vis the targets?
Every day, week, month, and ultimately the year.
It will need honesty, and if necessary course corrections. As soon as possible, otherwise the gaps will pile up at the end of the month or year (and then you can’t do anything).
So a good way will be to have a set of goals in a goal sheet and make it public. Share it with others around you, or maybe even on Social Media.
So that you remain committed to it, and also claim victory once you achieve.
Who does not want to brag about it?
