New Year’s Resolutions vs. SMART Goals

by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Time, Tools

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes, 57 seconds. → This is a special post to kick off the New Year. It’s longer than the regular daily ones (that you can read in under 5 min), but my hope is that it will spark some ideas and propel you into action.

I will NEVER make New Year’s Resolutions again…

December 31st used to roll around, I’d make tons of great-sounding resolutions, and anytime between late January 1st and January 8th, they would be gone: #resolutionfail. I’d feel like a failure, throw my hands in the air and resign my self to feel like a loser.

Not anymore! Resolutions don’t work for me—and I guess they don’t work for most other people—because they are merely feel-good wishes. But let’s reframe for a second here: what if we take those wishes and turn them into actions by converting them into SMART goals?

SMART is an acronym that is used for setting goals, it stands for:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Timebound

So let’s run through each one of these points to turn a resolution into a goal:

One of my resolutions was to “exercise more.” While that sounds great in principle, it’s setting me up for failure because it’s broadly defined. What does exercise and more mean?

S – Specific

Set your goal in as much detail as possible. In my case: I will do some form of aerobic exercise for 30 minutes a minimum of 5 days per week. My 2 faves are jogging and cycling, but I may change them for variety once in a while: elliptical, stairclimber, swimming, etc., depending on where I am and how much time I have. I will do some form of resistance exercise for 15 to 20 min a minimum of 3 days per week. This can be free weights, body weight exercises or using some sort of equipment at the gym.

M – Measurable

How will you know when you have succeeded? Specify what you are going to measure, that way you will know when you have reached your goal, big or small. By stating that I will do 30 min aerobic exercise a minimum of 5 days per week, I know what I need to schedule and I’ve set a measure for accountability and success. Same with the weights/resistance exercise for 15-20 min at minimum of 3 days per week.

A – Achievable

Can you meet this goal? Given my schedule and time constraints, this sounds like it’s indeed a doable goal. However, I will give myself the gift of flexibility and test it out. If, for some reason, my circumstances change as the year progresses and the goal becomes too hard or too easy, I will allow myself to revisit and fine-tune so that the goal becomes achievable for me again.

Remember that these are YOUR goals, and the more accommodating you are to making them happen, the more you will participate in them and enjoy them.

Peter Shankman in his book Faster Than Normal talks about setting up fail-safes so that you can guarantee that you can get done what you need to get done. A fail-safe is simply a process that you set up so that if A fails, then B kicks in to fix A or to make sure A gets done. Let me give you an example.

Let’s say that I want to get up early to exercise. I set up my alarm clock and when it goes off in the morning I hit snooze. My plan to get up has failed. But what if I also set up the alarm on my phone to go off at the same time as my alarm clock AND leave the phone outside my bedroom? That ensures that I will get up from my slumber to turn it off. And I will jump out of my bed really fast since I don’t want the alarm from my phone to disturb my husband’s sleep. So that ensures I’ll be up… might as well go exercise.

R – Realistic

Given your constraints, can your goal be attained? The expectations you set must be based on reality. My goal is certainly realistic given my fitness level and my work/time constraints. I’m not setting myself up for failure by wanting to go from zero to running a marathon in one week or some other non-realistic goal.

This point is key, because it is here where our wishful thinking can derail us as we start the New Year with grand hopes and expectations for us. Allow yourself to set big goals, but break them down into realistic bite-sized pieces so that you can complete one at a time. Consistency is better than perfection anytime. And remember that there will come a day, or two, or twelve (!)… when you will want to give up. STOP. Do. Not. Give. Up.

The weather may be ugly. Or you have bad hair day. Or you just aren’t seeing the progress you anticipated. Or. Or. Or… Just remember Woody Allen’s quote on those days: “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” And since you showed up, might as well do what you needed to do anyway.

OR… and this a big one… if you are not going to fulfill that day’s habit, then renegotiate the promise you made with yourself. OK, so no exercise today because there is a cloud in the sky (or insert excuse here) and you will simply take it back on again tomorrow. Deal. And this is OK too. Just make sure that you learn a lesson from that missed date. Perhaps you are tired because you didn’t sleep well – what do you need to do to ensure you sleep well so that this does not happen again? Reflect on the valuable lesson that you learned so that you can put fail-safes in place to avoid the same from happening in a future. Also, reevaluate your goal to make sure it is still doable. If not, figure out what necessary modifications you need to make to ensure you meet that goal.

The Realistic part applies not only to the goal itself but also to the process of getting it done. Be flexible and don’t give up.

T – Timebound

This is another key point that goes hand in hand with the Realistic one. When you set up times for performing and for completing, make sure they are realistic. You can get a lot of things done, if you just figure out how many hours it will take you to do so. Enter again our dear friend wishful thinking.

I love this quote from Bill Gates because it is so true: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

The best way to figure out what amount of time something is going to take is to assign it the time you think it will take. One of two things can happen:

1. Parkinson’s Law will kick in. This law states that: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. And if you only have a certain amount of time to do something, very likely you will get it done within that timeframe.
2. You will have a realistic assessment of the time that you will need to get that thing done. If you finish earlier than expected, congrats! You can move on to the next thing. Or if you really need more time, by now you’ll be able to assess how much more you need and schedule it accordingly.

And this reminds me of two of Laura Vanderkam’s great books: 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think and What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: How to Achieve More at Work and at Home.

The basic premise of both books is that we look at our time in chunks of 24 hours and want to cram as much as possible in that time span with the consequent disappointment, frustration and overwhelm. When we look at a week, we can plan better if we recognize that we have 168 hours. Even if we give ourselves the luxury of sleeping 8 hours a night, that takes only 56 hours away, leaving us with 112 hours to adapt our week to lots of professional and personal things that otherwise we’d never plan on doing.

And if we look at a weekend in a similar vein (from 6 pm on Friday when we leave work and the weekend “officially” starts to Monday at 6 am when the alarm clock goes off) we have 60 hours. Even if we sleep 24 hours, that leaves us with 36 hours to play, do chores or tackle our to-do list – that is almost the same amount of time as a full time job! (40 hours)

Laura’s point in all of this is the importance of planning: what gets scheduled gets done. Scheduling the time and truly devoting it to the activities that will help you achieve your goals is the best way to ensure that those goals will be met and you will be able to check them off your to-do or you bucket list.

As this new year begins, make a list of your goals, break them down into the components that make a SMART goal, and then schedule the times in your calendar, and respect those times as a promise you make to yourself so that you can make sure they get done. If for some reason comes a day or time when you cannot do it (and it will come), don’t beat yourself up, simply renegotiate with yourself (just as you would with any other person if you were doing something for them) and notice what you learn.

Hope this helps! Let me know what your goals are in the comments below. And please, schedule in your calendar 5 minutes at this time next year so that you can tell me how the process went.

I’m thrilled for you and cheering for your success!! 🙂