In the first blog in this series on resolutions, we talked about how people set themselves up to fail and how you can think differently to avoid making the same mistake.
In this blog we focus on setting your resolutions to increase your chance of success, how you can win even if you fail and when to start on your resolution.
Resolutions should be positive
Your resolution should be ‘I want a new job that challenges me’ and not ‘I want to get out of this job that I hate’.
Setting up a negative resolution won’t help you succeed. But setting up an overly positive resolution will also hinder your chances of success.
Sometimes, in our enthusiasm, we set resolutions we could never achieve. Just like a tightrope walker learns that by leaning too far to the left or too far to the right they will fail, we need to find balance in our resolutions: we need to balance our positivity with being realistic about our ability to achieve them.
Make ‘SMART’ resolutions
A great technique for setting goals is to set SMART resolutions.
It might seem a cliché to talk about ‘SMART’ resolutions, but as someone once said, “a cliché is a cliché because it works”.
When you set your resolutions, here’s how you make them ‘SMART’:
- Specific – make sure your goal clearly outlines what you want to achieve.
- Measurable – if you can’t measure your success how will you know when you have achieved your resolution?
- Actionable – make sure that resolution is within your control and you can do something about it. Set your resolution as an action not an outcome as we can control our actions but not the outcomes
- Relevant (or rewarding) – set a resolution that you actually want to achieve, otherwise you will quickly decide to stop
- Timebound – in what time frame do you want to achieve your resolution? Most of us require a bit of pressure to make us get started
This would turn the resolution of “get a better job” into “I am going to finish my xyz qualification by July and then apply for new jobs working as abc. I am going to apply for 5 jobs a month until I get a new job”.
Win as you go
The only way to guarantee you achieve your resolution is to set one so easy you can’t fail. This can make you feel good, but you might not end up where you dream of ending up.
At the same time, if you set a resolution that’s too hard, you have set yourself up to fail. And once you know you’re going to fail, it’s easy to decide to stop.
If your resolution was to “run the marathon in under 3 hours” and you finish in 3 hours and 5 minutes, have you failed? By that measure, yes you have. But think of all the small wins along the way. Your first 5k, 10k, your first event, your first half marathon, you finished a marathon, you’re fitter than before.
So when you set resolutions, set yourself up to win your way to success. Take your dream and think of all the wins you will have on the way. Treat these as mini goals that you tick off. Even if you don’t achieve your ultimate resolution you have won.
Sharing your resolutions
Some people like to tell other people what their resolution is. This can be for different reasons: saying it makes it real, getting support from other people, the pressure of letting people down incentivises them.
If this works for you then do it. But you don’t have to.
You may choose to only share a small part of what you want to do, so you get judged on the wins you make and not the failure of not achieving the big result. For example, you enter a race with two finish times in your head. The one you tell people who ask and a faster one you keep as a secret that makes you want to train harder.
Some people like to go a step further than telling people their resolutions and instead find someone to do it with. This can work wonders but can also be bad. If you and a friend sign up to do a new hobby, meeting them can give you incentive to go. But if your friend starts to become negative or changes their mind it can knock you back.
If you are going to have a shared resolution with a friend, make sure that one of you isn’t just going along for the ride and will quit when effort is required.
You have to start
We all know of the friend who wanted to get fit. Decided to run a half marathon, perhaps. Told everyone about it and felt good. Then after a couple of weeks, went and bought some new running trainers. That was exciting. But the weather was getting bad and two months later they hadn’t been for a run. They forgot to start.
Instead, they could have decided to just start getting fit. They could have put on his old trainers and gone for a run, even if just around the block, and thought about new shoes a few weeks later once they were running.
You don’t have to wait until New Year’s Day. If you know what you want to do, you can start now. Start with something small but start the journey. And if you want to follow tradition and start in the new year, remember that the most important thing is starting, don’t put off starting whilst you get the details sorted.
Start today. The detail can wait.
In part 3 of this series we will explain how you can work on your resolution to ensure you maximise your chances of success. Don’t forget to follow Stag Protect, on Facebook or LinkedIn, to see your latest blogs as they are released.
