5 Things You Need to Know About Your Goals

All this goal-setting and vision-boarding can be fun, but it can also be a serious letdown 11 months from now when you’re (a) trying to remember what the heck your goals were in the first place, (b) piecing together that workout checklist you tore up, oh, seven months and 13 double cheeseburgers ago, or (c) trying to figure out how you spent nearly a whole year fighting for this one thing — and you’re still so far from reaching it.

That’s why it’s helpful to keep these things in mind as you plunge toward those what-was-I-thinking-but-YESSS-let’s-do-this dreams of yours:

1. Only plan on completing 2/3 to 3/4 of your goals each year. Wait, what?! You mean failure is okay?! When a friend told me his company sets annual goals and tells employees to strive for a 67-75% completion rate, my eyes bulged in shock while they simultaneously watered for the kind, benevolent soul who created such an objective. The concept makes sense: If you hit 100% each year, how much are you really striving and growing? It’s a sign your goals are too easy for you. And any less than 2/3? Your goals may be too big, vague and unwieldy to even address, let alone conquer.
2. Give yourself a quick win. Or two. If you’re the type to get discouraged easily when you’re not moving the needle on a project (um, that’s me!), it’s always worth listing 1-2 tiny-yet-satisfying goals you can cross off right away. For me, that was going stand-up paddleboarding. This year, it’s even simpler: Sip coffee and browse the trinkets at Oxford Exchange in Tampa. I follow the shop on Instagram and have been meaning to visit for over a year, so it’s high time I just scheduled time for it.
3. Decide whether your goals need an accountability partner. For years, experts have been saying that telling someone your goals increases your chances of following through with them. But then, as Derek Sivers mentions in this TED Talk, some goals are so over-the-top that people are likely to start poking holes in them right away, deflating your resolve. The key is determining which goals are worth sharing — like your desire to run a 5K, and other measurable goals you’re not so sensitive about — and which people are worthy of hearing those goals (your supportive aunt, sure; your Eeyore-like friend, not so much).
4. Create one overarching goal and break it down into bite-sized steps. Even when you create goals you want to achieve, it’s common to procrastinate on them — I mean, when your goals are big, where do you even start? Try focusing on one goal for the year ahead, and breaking it down into a series of steps you can track, giving each one a deadline. Schedule calendar alerts every two weeks to check in with yourself and see how you’re doing. (As a University of Washington study found, you’re more likely to achieve a goal when you keep a log of your progress.)
5. Commit to not letting akrasia set in. As G.I. Joe so poetically stated, “knowing is half the battle.” Beyond sounding like a craggy country in a dystopian novel, akrasia is psychologists’ term for that feeling you get when you know you should do something, and you know it’s good for you, but you just don’t wanna (seriously). Often, the culprit behind this feeling is the delayed benefit, Quartz reports — you don’t immediately see results, so you slip up. Repeatedly. Until you throw the whole goal out the window. In this case, the other half of the battle is choosing your sneakers over your big, comfy bed and hitting that morning run you committed to. Or, you know, whatever your #2015bucketlist contains. 😉

 

So, all that said — er, read — if you haven’t set any goals for the next 12 months, maybe you print this out and join the fun?