Effective Goal Setting
It’s a New Year! Time to make those resolutions—or is it? Effective Goal Setting New Year’s resolutions...they are a waste of time and I don’t make them! Why? “Resolutions” made at a time when social pressure and an arbitrary date in the diary dictate that we “should” decide things, are doomed from the start. A controversial viewpoint, you may think? Well, let’s start with the facts: - Around 43% of people make New Year’s resolutions. - Of those, close to 4 in 10 have broken them by the end of January, while a further third only keep them up for six months.[1] I have a theory as to why. First, New Year’s resolutions are made using our conscious mind—the logical front brain part—which, like a captain of a ship, sets the direction for the crew. I’ll come back to the crew in a moment. Secondly, most of the time New Year’s resolutions are not actually goals. How many of us set New Year’s resolutions like, “I’ll go to the gym three times a week,” or “I’ll give up smoking” or “I’ll create a better work-life balance”? These are not goals. Why not? A goal is an outcome, not the thing or action you do to get the outcome. Sometimes the actions themselves may not excite us, but a great goal should! So ask yourself why do you want to go to the gym three times a week? What will stopping smoking really do for you? Getting the right higher level goal can be a powerful motivator and push you through the actions you’ll need to take in order to succeed. In the example—“I’ll create a better work-life balance”—what does a “better work-life balance” [...]