Treating New Year’s resolutions as SMART goals

Today I am writing about New year’s resolutions, why? Because at the time of writing this, it’s mid-Feb and I’m wondering how many of us are keeping up these resolutions?

What does a resolution mean?

A firm decision made on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day to do or refrain from doing something over the course of the coming year.

Personally, what my husband and I do with the kids, is that during our New Year’s dinner, we discuss our successes as a family as well as our own personal successes. For the kids, of course school is very important. We look back at the past year and talk about what we could have done better, what should have had our full attention, and why we didn’t. 

We also share what our plans are for the coming year, on a personal, professional and school level. We do this every year and it has become a family tradition. We also like to review our resolutions on a regular basis throughout the year. Because it’s a family thing we do it in a fun and relaxed way.

How do you manage to maintain your professional SMART Goals?

By making sure that these are written down and by making them SMART, this way we are able to measure ourselves and it gives us a much better chance of achieving them. SMART goals help you to in increase your motivation and maintain a strict discipline in terms of timelines by which you want to achieve your resolutions.

Visualize what you want to achieve, it does not matter how small or big your intentions are. Begin with the end in mind. Commit yourself to what you want in life. 

Review your resolutions on a regular basis, give yourself enough time to achieve results, because often, with so much going on, we can get diverted if we are not too careful. So determine which resolutions are the most important to you, what are the ones to have priority at that moment, and plan how you can achieve them. Perhaps you will need to move them further into the year, just make sure you do not ignore or forget them.

In the words of Pablo Picasso, “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success”.

You can also make your resolutions (SMART goals) agile/ 

Check their priority on a regular basis. 

Be open to change the times of completion, it’s more important to be in line with the reality. 

Update your written smart goals with progress updates, this will give you confidence.

Schedule yourself to review your intentions at least every quarter.

Celebrate your achievements. Every tick in the box needs to be rewarded.

Reflect on what you are doing or where you need to improve your commitment and behavior.