Criticism is often leveled at New Year’s Resolutions. The claim is that if you want to make a change in your life, you should make it, and not wait for the 1st of January to roll around. While this argument does hold weight, it ignores the element of the human psyche that likes to clearly define behaviour change. We like to have sharp edges to our actions. We like stages and steps, with boundaries and bookends.
So while criticisms may be valid in part, any sort of structured goal setting process can only be a positive. If it takes a changing of the year to kick start this process, so be it.
And that’s what resolutions are. Goals. Or at least they should be.
The research behind goal setting is considerable. Goal setting works because:
Goals direct attention to important elements of the skill being performed.
Goals increase performer efforts.
Goals prolong performer persistence.
Goals foster the development of new learning strategies.
Goals affect psychological state: Confidence, anxiety and satisfaction.
Here are your top tips for creating resolutions that stick.
1) Align Your Resolutions to Your Values:
For permanent change, anything you do has to align to your values. If you don’t value something, you can’t trust that your future self will place enough importance on it to get it done. And honestly, if you don’t value it, there’s no benefit in getting it done anyway. Spend some time narrowing down your values. This is the belief system that runs a common thread through everything you do.
2) Work Out WHERE You Want to Get To:
Once you’ve established your values, you can develop a set of goals that work to support these values.
Begin with outcome based goals. These are useful for identifying your destination. They do little to provide directions to arrive at this destination, but at least you know where you want to be heading. They keep you focused. These outcome goals all meet the criteria of being specific, measureable, realistic, action-based and time orientated.
3) Work Out HOW to Get Where You Want To Be:
Once you’ve established what you want to achieve for the year (your process goals), the next step is to determine how you’re going to get there. These are your process goals – the actions you can take to reach the desired destination.
For each outcome based goals, there can be many process goals. The more you have, the clearer the steps you need to take. Work backwards chronologically with these, starting with the outcome goal, and determining how to get there. Your process goals are a ‘to do list’ of behaviour change.
4) Keep Your Goals At The Forefront of Your Thinking:
Simply setting goals is not enough, they should be revisited often. Display them in a prominent place, maybe laminated on the outside of your shower screen or as the lock screen on your phone. Set yourself reminders to read through your goals in their entirety at the start of every month.
5) Evaluate Your Goals:
At the end of the year, when you’re starting to think about your goals for the next year, write yourself a report card on that year’s resolutions. What worked? What didn’t? Learn from your previous goals and resolutions to make you future ones more effective.
