I’ve made New Year’s Resolutions for the last three years now. Before that, I voiced the occasional late-December wish to be a better and more talented person. But it was only a couple of years ago that I figured out the key to workable resolutions – concrete goals.
Whether you’ve been plugging away at achieving your New Year’s goals or forgot about them by January 3, halfway through the year is a good time to pull out the list and reevaluate. Here’s the method I used.
Photo courtesy of nevil zaveri
Assess Your Success So Far
The first thing to do is to honestly assess your achievements thus far. If it helps, use a pie graph, bar chart or some other visual aid. Be concrete where you can. If you aimed to lose 30 pounds, weigh yourself and write down how many you’ve lost. If you aimed to read 50 books, count ‘em up. (This is where being concrete when making your initial resolutions helps. It’s very hard to measure “patience” or “intellectual fulfilment” in any objective way!)
Most of my goals were easy to measure. “Get learner’s and restricted driver’s licence” – well, I’ve done the first part and I’m on track to be able to take my restricted late this year. So far, so good. “Have nine articles accepted for print” – not so much. So far I’m up to two.
Weed Out the Dead Goals
I’m not ready to give up on the nine-articles-for-print goal just yet, despite my unimpressive track record so far. In fact, looking over my goals, there aren’t any I’m willing to scrap.
If you do find some goals that are simply non-starters, don’t be afraid to scratch them off. Ask yourself:
- Did I choose this goal for a good reason, or just because I felt I should learn a new language/take up yoga/learn to change a tyre for the sake of it?
- Is this goal no longer appropriate to my life circumstances? (If you’re newly pregnant, taking up extreme sports might best be put on hold.)
- Could I simply scale down the goal instead of abandoning it completely?
If you’re realistically not going to make that goal, you may as well strike it off. Having a vague feeling of guilt won’t help you achieve anything!
Refocus and Plan For Any Lagging Goals
One of my goals was to read through the whole Bible during the year. No, I didn’t use one of those “Read Through the Bible In a Year” programmes – that would have curbed my anarchic, rebellious spirit. Now it’s June and my anarchic, rebellious spirit has left me stuck somewhere in the depths of Exodus. Given that I don’t want to scrap this goal, I had to come up with a concrete solution to make it happen. My genius idea? Making a list of the books of the Bible to check off and taping it to the toilet wall. (I considered putting a Bible by the toilet too – opinions on the theological appropriateness of this?)
If you made any airy-fairy goals, now’s the time to make them practical. Change “Do more exercise” to “Walk to the grocery store twice a week”. Change “Spend more quality time with my toddler” to “Set aside half an hour every day to engage in imaginative play”.
I nearly ditched one of my goals because I’d framed it as “Spend one hour a week writing fiction”. I never managed to find a free hour. I was about to give up the goal, but then asked myself the questions above and realised I didn’t want to. I do genuinely want to write fiction, and my life is unlikely to become more placid for the next twenty years. So instead of giving up I reframed the resolution. Now I write fiction for 15 minutes every day, Monday to Friday. Working in short blocks is much more practical with a toddler, and this way if I miss a day I still make my hour-a-week goal.
Use the Carrot and Stick Approach
To further inspire me to achieve my writing goals, I made a tiny list and taped it to my computer keyboard. Until I’ve done a certain amount of writing every day – 15 minutes of fiction, 10 minutes of marketing and so on – I can’t surf the Internet. It’s painful, but it works (OK, mostly).
I seem to work better with sticks than carrots; but if you’re a reward-driven person, make that work too!Try to make the rewards relevant to the goals, pairing weight loss with new clothes or exercise with a hiking trip.
Make a List of Your Revised Resolutions
Once your resolutions are in good shape, do whatever you need to do to remember them. This could be as low-tech as a list on the fridge, or you could use spreadsheets, Google calendar reminders, an accountability buddy or, if you’re desperate, a tattoo. Wait until a new week starts to give you that “fresh” feeling, and then dive back in. Happy six months!
