Don’t Just Make Resolutions, Set Goals for the New Year

Congratulations! You’ve just won that fresh start you’ve wanted. Another new year, another terrific opportunity to begin refreshed and motivated. Yes, you can make 2012 your best year ever.

Wondering where to begin? Let’s start at the spot where you’re most likely to succeed. It’s that place you recognize today, the place you want to move forward from. It’s what you can see clearly in your head and in your heart. It’s vision. Your vision!  

Your success will only be as sure and as strong as your vision, that picture of a fantastic future many begin painting with New Year’s resolutions.  

If the research is right, when we create our New Year’s resolutions, most of us resolve to be healthier, smarter, weigh less, earn more and have more fulfilling relationships. We’ll take our trim selves on exotic vacations in the sun paid for out of chubby savings accounts. And our businesses will run smooth as silk without us while we’re gone, taken care of by happy teammates serving even happier customers.

Yes, eight to twelve percent of us – that’s just two or three out of every 25 Phoenix Chamber members reading this will finish 2012 having successfully achieved their New Year’s resolutions. The rest of us will have given up within weeks of starting.

Wait, that can’t be right. Nearly 90% of us FAIL? Who’d be dumb enough to set resolutions they can’t or won’t keep? How is that helpful?

Well, it’s not. Resolutions are little more than good intentions. Few resolutions have the legs to carry you past loosely formed ideas of who or what you want to be or do (or should have been or done). As many as 25 percent give up in the first week, and fewer than half are still at it by summer because resolutions just don’t work.

So then how do we move forward toward that vision we’re committed to? The answer is easier than you’d think:

Step 1: Set SMART Goals: Your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. For example, instead of resolving to “get thinner," plan to lose 12 pounds in three months by eating fewer than 1500 calories a day and exercising three times a week. Track, test, and measure your results.

Step 2: Take First Steps: Start with just the first three months. Map a 13 week game plan where you can create specific weekly actions and quarterly milestones. Maybe you’ll plan to eat healthy by shopping and cooking healthy, or thinking through what you will and won’t eat or drink at parties.

Step 3: Be Accountable: Put people and systems in place to hold you accountable to making your changes and keep you motivated. Use apps and BFFs. Remember to celebrate your success often.

You can do this! Map a predictable plan for 2012 success for both your personal and your business life. This starts with understanding where you are, having a vision for your future, setting clear goals and taking first steps that propel you. It’s your goals, action plans, and relationships that move you forward, well past your dissatisfaction or concerns, and right into the lap of success.

Try this Formula for Success: (D x V) + FS > R. Dissatisfaction times Vision plus your First Steps must be greater than your Resistance. If so, you’ll do it! Your path to success will be assured.  You can do it differently this year.

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This story is part of the Chamber's monthly Valley Young Professionals email. To sign up for any or all of the Chamber's email communications, click here. Image: tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net