Forget Resolutions - Make 1-Year Goals instead!

Last year I made a list of things

that I resolved to do.

I’ll use that list again this year;

it’s still as good as new.
- Unknown

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by Che Garman


A New Year’s resolution is supposed to be “a personal commitment to accomplish a defined goal within the coming year”. And for many of us, this is how New Year’s Resolutions start. We write them down. We may even look at them for a few days. But after a week or a month, the commitment to our resolutions (if it was even there in the first place) is usually forgotten. Old habits take over before new habits have had a chance to stick. Daily living gets in the way and the time we set aside for working on goals seems to disappear entirely.

Don’t get me wrong. Resolutions are a great idea. Bringing in the New Year with intentions of positive change and accomplishment is wonderful in concept. But simply writing out a list of resolutions is not going to make it happen. If we want to achieve our New Year’s Resolutions, we need to treat them with the respect that all good goals deserve. In fact, let’s forget the term “resolutions” completely, and call them One-Year Goals instead.

There are certain rules that apply to goal-setting if success is to be realized. The first is putting the goal in writing (which is about as far as most people get when making resolutions). But even this basic step must be done properly. Simply writing “Lose 10 pounds” on a piece of paper is not going to work.

SMART Goals
You have probably heard the term SMART goals. This is a simplified acronym for remembering the basic rules for the wording of goals:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time Bound

This is a good tool, but there is much more to goal-setting than getting the wording right. If we look at the whole process from conception to completion, an effective method must include much more. What is really needed is a process for both creating and achieving goals. We need to get beyond SMART. What we really need is specific steps that will lead us from goal-setting to goal getting!

Here’s where to start! Beyond SMART: 17 Steps to Achieving Goals