As we begin the year anew, many of us have publicly or perhaps just to ourselves, set goals for ourselves for the coming year. If you’re like most Americans, at least one of your goals has something to do with your health and wellness, either physical, mental or financial. And perhaps by the time you’re reading this, you’ve already given up on one of those goals, not because it isn’t important to you, but possibly because of the way the goal was constructed.
Where we miss the mark with specific and measurable goals
The trouble with most goals is that in an attempt to follow the best practice of making them measurable and specific, we also have a tendency to require perfect adherence to new habits right out of the gate in order to achieve the goal.
For example, a goal of meditating each morning or cooking dinner at home on weekdays – these are worthy goals that can be quite supportive of all areas of our wellbeing. But if you weren’t already close to doing those things already in your life, it’s unrealistic to expect yourself to perfectly jump right in to these new habits from Day 1.
Then, for most of us, once we’ve failed at the goal because we didn’t manage to meditate maybe even one day this first week of the year, we simply forget about it and move on.
It’s not the goal that’s the problem
The issue here isn’t that the goal wasn’t realistic or specific enough. It’s that there was no “on ramp” for adopting the new habit. There was no grace to allow yourself to try new routines while figuring out what might work. There was no accommodation for the fact that our lives have seasons along with Mother Nature. Times when we are busy and productive and times when we need to slow down and rest or heal.
How to create goals that can whether any season
So how do you reconcile your desire to add new habits into your lifestyle with the fact that your body is most likely signaling to you that it’s more of a time of shedding actions and just resting during the winter season? What type of goal can you set that can flex through times when life is hectic or when you’re sick or have to travel for work?
One solution to this is to make your goals less daily-focused and more annually-focused. Going back to our meditation example, if your ultimate wish is really to foster a meditation habit, you may be tempted to set a goal of meditating 10 minutes per day, thinking that’s a reasonable amount of time you can find to tend to your tired brain. But the reality of your life is that some days you have time for more while some mornings may only offer you 2 minutes of mindful breathing.
Rather than making your goal more vague to account for the inability to commit a full 10 minutes each day, consider setting a goal that makes 10 minutes the average, but annualized. In other words, instead of saying, “I will meditate for at least 10 minutes daily,” make your goal, “I will meditate for a total of 3,650 minutes this year.” That way if you can find 30 minutes on a slower weekend morning, but have to skip on a Manic Monday, you’re still on track!
Or if your goal is to incorporate more strength training into your life, rather than saying you’ll go to the gym three times a week, which is what experts recommend for the ideal benefits from weightlifting, make it into an annual goal. “I’ll lift weights at least 150 times this year.”
This way if you start the New Year off with a nasty cold and don’t manage to get to the gym even once in the first week, you’re not already in failure mode. You can make up for the below average activity week with a higher-than-average week later this year, when you’re feeling stronger and more motivated.
Keep the spirit of the goal at the forefront when creating your plan
This method works best with goals that involve adding a new habit to your life, although with some creative thinking, you can also use it for things you’re trying to stop or limit.
For example, let’s say you want to pay off your credit card debt and you know that if you could cut back on ordering delivery for dinner that you could do so. Then rather than going cold turkey and saying, “No more delivery,” give yourself a two-part goal: “I will achieve a zero balance on my credit card this year and to do so, I will hold myself to only 52 delivery meals in total this year.”
That’s an average of one per week but gives you flexibility for weeks when life is crazy to order more than once, knowing you’ll be able to make up for it during a slower week when you can meal plan and cook at home every night.
Giving yourself grace without giving up
There’s a fine line between giving yourself permission to be less than perfect and just throwing in the towel on any self-improvement efforts. By setting goals that give you the whole year to figure out how to create the new habits that will make them stick, you have space to have bad days or weeks but can still get back on track without having to psychologically start from scratch.
Try it and let us know what goals you are setting. And no matter what your plans are for yourself this year, we all wish you a wildly prosperous year full of health and wealth and love and time to enjoy them.