Blog Fitness or Lack Thereof Lifestyle Uncategorized Women's Issues

I hate Resolutions.

January 1, 2019 by Jessica No Comments

Here we are, New Year’s Day, January 1, 2019. I’m glad that 2018 is gone. It was a tough year with love, loss, hardship, frustration, and opportunity. I’m thankful for the personal growth I achieved, and for the self-awareness that has started to blossom out of being deliberate with my thoughts and time, but now it’s time to move to the next level. 2018 left me feeling unfulfilled, like there’s more out there.

May I be honest? I hate making resolutions. It’s not that I don’t want to make progress or make positive changes in my life. It’s that when I make resolutions, unless I have a really good idea of how I’m going to actually act out my resolutions, I end up at the end of the year not accomplishing much and feeling like a failure and feeling defeated. Which makes it highly unlikely that I’ll make any more resolutions for the next year. I hate making resolutions because they don’t work.

In and of themselves, resolutions are nothing more than the “resolve” or decision to act a certain way. They aren’t the actions themselves or the “doing,” just the decisions. It’s grand to make resolutions, but if you don’t follow them up with concrete actions and a plan, you’ll probably end up at the end of the year like me, feeling like a failure and feeling defeated. Decide, then do.

So what keeps me from making actual goals, instead of resolutions, and moving my goals from decisions into actions?

I’m going to be really blunt here, and you might find it familiar. For me, it’s the fear of failure. I usually naturally drift toward those things that come easy for me, and not the things that are unknown or require hard work. I don’t like the feeling of failing or not measuring up. It’s easier to shoot for the things that come easier and that I know I can accomplish easier. I think that’s normal for most of us. Getting past the easy is crazy scary and hard, but life-giving and life-changing, if we allow it to be.

If I make an easy resolution that I subconsciously know I would have attained anyway, like reading to my kids more, I can feel good about “keeping my resolutions.” If I state an actual goal that I have that I am not currently attaining and haven’t attained in the past, like the desire for a 100-pound weight loss, that suddenly makes me accountable to myself.

In the past, I haven’t been very good at figuring out and putting the plans into place so I can achieve my goals, so it was easier not to set them in the first place.

How do you change decisions into action?

I’m sure you have probably heard of SMART goal-setting. S stands for specific, M is for measurable, A is for attainable, R is for realistic, and T is for time-related. Oh, how I chafed when I was first introduced to SMART goal-setting. I didn’t like the idea of having to make my goals more than a simple statement of desire. Again, it was fear rearing its ugly head. I didn’t know how to set a smart goal and I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn.

What I have learned is that the best chance I have at actually achieving a goal is to follow the SMART acronym, because it places measurable parameters around my goal and makes it quantifiable. I can actually tell if and when I’m making progress, or not.

Resolutions are kind of superfluous and up in the clouds. Let’s say you want to eat fewer sweets or exercise more. How can you tell if you’re actually doing less of something? Or more of something? Unless you have a way to measure it, it’s just a guess. And do you really want to leave your goals up to a guessing-game?

Let’s talk about how to set SMART goals.

Once you get the hang of it, I think you’ll find that it’s actually easier than just making vague resolutions. There is power in being able to measure progress and you’ll find yourself achieving more than you thought possible. Here’s a simple example of a SMART goal in action:

S is Specific. Make your goal as specific as possible. Do you want to read more books? How many books? What type of books? Let’s say I want to read non-fiction, murder mysteries and biographies. Now I have narrowed my goal down to the three specific genres I want to read more of.
M is Measurable. I say I want to read more books. How many books do I want to read? Let’s say I want to read twelve books in the new year, and I want four of them to be non-fiction, four to be murder mysteries, and four to be biographies. This is one book per month, and one of each genre per trimester, should I choose to break it down that way. Now I have something I can actually measure my progress with.
A is Attainable. Let’s say I decide I want to read more books in the Chinese language. I don’t currently know any Chinese, and don’t have the time or the funds to take the courses necessary to learn a new language, so I’d better stick to books in English for now, which is quite attainable.
R is Realistic. Is it realistic for me to say I want to read 100 books in the new year? With kids and a small business we own, probably not. So for me, stating that I want to read twelve books in the new year is realistic. It’s basically a book per month.
T is Time-Related. Since we’re talking goals for the new year, I am going to specify that I want to read my twelve books in a single year, one per month. You can decide to read that way, or you could read two books every two months, or however you want to break it down.

So my SMART goal example for the new year would be this: I will read twelve books in twelve months, one book per month, four books being non-fiction, four being murder mysteries, and four being biographies. I can map out which book I will read each month and make it that much more specific, should I desire. Congratulations, me! I just made my first SMART goal! I have set a very clear goal and very clear steps to take to reach it.

Once I’m more experienced at SMART goals, I can even take another step and break down when I will read the books during each day, week and month so that I will meet my reading goals. You’ll find that some of the letters can be interchangeable in some ways, and as you set more SMART goals, you’ll find yourself able to set very good goals without having to labor as much through each letter each time.

I’m finding that this way is the only way I’m able to achieve goals, and it actually makes the goals that I once thought were unattainable and unrealistic within my reach. It’s also a great confidence booster.