We’re almost one week into 2020 (can you believe it?!) and that means that people have either already set their goals for 2020 or are in the process of setting their goals for 2020. When it comes to New Year’s Resolutions less the 5% of people actually end up reaching their goals, and less that 10% last more than a few months into their resolutions. That’s crazy! So how do you prevent yourself from becoming one of the 90% that don’t stick to the path? It all comes down to how you set your goals. Most people get it wrong which is why they find it impossible to stick to their resolutions. Because of this, we wanted to give you folks some tips on how to set goals that you can actually reach! Don’t have too many goals- most people really get into the “new year, new me” mantra by setting a ton of different goals that they want to accomplish by the end of the year. It could be fitness related (most are), financial, relationship, you name it...but the reality is when a person sets too many goals it can be hard to stick to them because your attention is so split. Shoot for 1-3 goals that you are really going to commit to. If you reach them before the end of the year you can always set new ones! Be patient- for many of us, especially when it comes to our fitness goals, we didn’t get to where we are in a short amount of time...and we won’t reach our goals in a short amount of time either. Many people make their goals really challenging and stumble because they aren’t where they want to be fast enough. The best thing to do when it comes to taking the steps to reach a goal is to follow Jeff Olsen’s the Slight Edge principle: everything you need to do to reach your goals is just as easy to do as it is not to do. A great example is tracking food; with today’s technology it’s as easy as scanning a barcode. We reach our goals by the little decisions we make every day and if we’re patient enough we’ll be able to reach our goals. Don’t make your goals too hard core- we all know that person (and maybe we are that person) whose resolution is to go from zero days of working out per week to five days of working out per week. For the vast majority of people this is a SUPER unsustainable goal, it’s just too different than our norm so we end up failing and then not doing anything. The best way to go from zero to hero is to find the amount of effort output that you can maintain long-term and then once you get into good momentum you can add to it. Don’t be too rigid- success is a journey of failure. No person who has ever been successful has not failed throughout their journey. If the rules to reach your goal are too hard and you don’t give yourself grace to fail then you will never reach your goal. A great example is diet: if your goal is to never eat bread again, then once you inevtiably go back to normal and eat bread because you like it will completely through you off and is unsustainable. The secret to reaching your goals is to give yourself enough room to fall and get back up. Your goals should stretch you, so you should give yourself room to grow. Be specific- do you have an image in your mind of what it will look like when you reach your goal? If it’s weightloss, do you know how much you want to weigh or what size clothing you’d like to fit into? For some people, having an end goal is great but they need to focus on the specific habits that are going to get them to their goal. This is called a growth based goal-- what’s one thing that you can do differently that will lead you toward your desired outcome? If you’re trying to eat better, maybe that goal is to shop on the outer edges of the aisles where most of the whole foods are located. Always go back to tip number one though, don’t make too many of these either! Make your goal measurable- the best way to ensure success in reaching your goals is to have a way to measure it. For weight loss maybe that means checking in weekly and weighing and measuring yourself to see how your body is changing; for financial goals that may mean looking at your bank account and statements every week to make sure you’re on track. Bottom line is you need to constantly revisit your goals and where you are that way the likelihood of you reaching your goals is higher!
