“New Year, New Me
!” How many of you have proclaimed this year after year, to only give up or forget about your new year’s resolutions within a month or two? I certainly have. For many years I saw the New Year as a fresh start to achieving my goals in my personal and professional life. Until recently, my goals for my professional life have not changed. Continue to teach while pursuing my second Master’s degree. I’ll figure out what I want to do with that degree later. Well, later will never come if you do not set goals.
This year, I’m taking on a new perspective. It is the daily habits that promote change, or keep change from happening. This year, instead of stating one big resolution, I will be learning and implementing a 90-day goal setting habit. Big, annual goals are great and all, but when they are broken down into attainable, 90-day, 30-day, weekly, or daily goals: that is where the magic happens.
A well known process for goal setting is called creating SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-sensitive. Many want to lose weight as a new year resolution, but it isn’t enough just to state that. A SMART goal for losing weight could be: I will lose 30 pounds by eating clean and exercising daily by May 1. This goal tells you what you want to do, how you will do it, and by what date you will do it. To take this even a step further, you could list the specific steps that are required in order to reach this goal. For example, what does eating clean mean? By defining this, the goal just became “SMART-er.”
Writing down goals is proven to be the best way to achieve them. Visual representations of goals that are visible on a daily basis. Coming up with a system that works for you, and making it a habit is a sure-fire way of achieving your goals. Some ways that I have tried include keeping a dry-erase marker by my bathroom mirror and writing goals and/or motivational quotes, keeping a notebook at my bed and by my bathroom sink, carrying around a notebook with me daily, putting notes in my phone, and setting up reminders with my phone. Some of these I still do, and have turned it into a habit, and some I have lost along the way. If you try something and it does not work, then change it. Do not look at it as a failure, just simply a learning experience with something that did not work.
On Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms, it seems like many people are considering 2016 a failure, and a not very good year. Myself included. Thinking about this more, as I was reflecting on this year, I decided to take a different stance on it, and encourage you to do the same. Instead of looking at the year as a failure, why not look at it as a learning experience. Reflect on what specific things “failed” last year, or what went wrong, and then think about what you learned from it.
In my personal life, I had set a goal of losing 20 more pounds by the end of the year. I didn’t lose a single pound. Well, actually, I gained and lost the same 5 pounds all year long. It is very frustrating. I have an idea of why that happened, but instead of looking at that as a failure, I can look at what it taught me. One thing it taught me is if I ate and exercised just like last year, I learned how to maintain my weight. Although I am not at my goal weight, or my goal body composition, if I did not change a thing, I know that I will not gain back the 35 pounds that I have lost. It also taught me about how much of an emotional eater I actually am. I can look back at the times when I was gaining the 2-5 pounds and what went on during that week or two week period. The higher my stress and frustration, the more “crap” I ate: candy, pretty much. This is part of one of my goals for 2017.
I follow Chalene Johnson, who is a best selling author, Beachbody instructor, and overall awesome person (or so I think). She promotes a 90-day goal setting strategy that I am going to learn and implement to see if it works for me, along with healthy habits and an overall healthy lifestyle. In one of her Facebook Lives the other day, she proposed this exercise as a must-do for 2017. Now, confession, I have yet to do this, but it is on my list to-do and I do think it is very good exercise. Here is what she said:
Take a look at your 2016 calendar and write these things down…
- What was the smartest thing you did last year?
- List 2 things that you NEVER want to have happen again (if possible).
- Identify 3 very high stress moments. What could have made those times a little easier?
- What 4 things went really, really well? Why?
- List 5 things you did last year that you could do better.
- Out of everything you did last year to help other people, what 1 thing made you feel the best?
She goes on to say that this list is what will be used to help set goals for the next 90-days. I’m sure I will be writing about this on a later date. But, this list can also be used as a learning experience for how to make 2017 a better year than 2016. There are a few things that I hope to implement to help me on my journey this year. I have come up with 6 goals (at the moment) that I will be ‘analyzing’ and creating SMART goals for. I will have action steps to help me along the way, and I am hoping that Chalene’s 90-day goal setting technique will help me even more. I am very excited for this New Year and most of it has to do with my changing mindset and changing perspective. I encourage all of you to embark in a personal development journey and make this your best year yet.
