New Year, New You: Swap Resolutions for Goals Part 2 - How to Set Goals

Either you have recently read our post on why goals are so important (and why I don't like to call them resolutions) or you know goals are important, but just don't know how to go about setting goals. Most people tend to set such lofty goals that they become easily discouraged and return to a no-goal lifestyle or assume they cannot achieve the things they want.

THIS IS NOT TRUE!

To everyone out there, you can achieve just about anything you set your mind to. Don't get me wrong there are a few things you probably cant change. For example, if you're 6'-2" and really would have like to be 5', you're probably out of luck. However, most other things such as mental or physical abilities are achievable if you set your mind to it.

Many of you may have heard of SMART goals before. This is not my invention by any means and is often used in work places to measure career progression or goals. While many have heard of it, it is not often translated out of the workplace and into our personal lives. So, here is a recap of how it works and a few tips to achieve your new year's goals.

• Be Specific

Being vague means you have no milestones to reach or no real finish point. Can you imagine running a marathon if at the start they said "We've hidden the finish line, but if you run around the city long enough, I'm sure you'll find it"? No, that would never happen. Why then do we set goals this way? Let's say you want to save more money this year. Rather than writing down "save more money", set a specific goal. Try "Save $5,000 this year" or $1,000 or whatever fits your lifestyle. If you only make $20,000 gross a year, $5,000 might be hard to make it a feasible goal.

A few more examples of how to transform goals from vague to specific:

"Get Fit" to "Run a 5K by July" 

"Be more Active" to "Attend yoga class twice a week"

 "Read More" to "Read 1 book/month"

• Measurable

This point follows right in like with being specific. There has to be a way to measure your progress. Let's follow the saving money example. If I kept my goal as "save more money", how would I know when I had saved enough? Would $1 be saving enough money, or would $20,000 be what I was hoping for? We won't feel as though we are making progress if there is nothing to measure how we are doing.

• Attainable

While we are making progress is our goals are both specific and measurable, we still need to be able to achieve these goals. Try setting stepping stone goals that can be completed over time. For example, let's say you have never run before in your life (or it's been 25 years), aim for a 3k or 5k run after a few months rather than a marathon by June. You might be able to walk a marathon, but probably won't be able to get in shape in time to actually run the marathon. Or we can go back to the money example. If you only make $20,000, saving $15,000 for a down payment this year will not be possible unless you have no bills at all and don't need to eat. You do need to eat so try to aim for something that you could actually do. You can always work up to the bigger goals. You could run a 5k this year and maybe by next year you will be running a whole marathon. Or you can save $2,000 this year and work on increasing your income to continue saving next year.

• Be Relevant

Pick goals that actually matter to you. Just because everyone on facebook or twitter is saying they are going to lose 10 pounds this year, doesn't mean you have to follow suit. There is a good chance you don't need to lose weight, but maybe you would like to increase how much weight you can lift or how far you can run in one sitting. Possibly, you are already in great shape and at a healthy weight, then aim for a wider range of goals. You could have a goal of volunteering to tutor kids one day a month, drink a gallon of water a day, or clean your house every week. Your goals do not have to be popular with your peer group, they just have to be something you want to improve.

• Time Based

Now that we've set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant to us, let's try to set a time-frame in which to achieve these goals. Maybe you need the whole year, maybe you've set several milestone goals leading up to one major goals that will occur over the next 5 years. That is okay too as long as you have smaller goals that you can reach along the way to the big goal. If you have a deadline you're more likely to finish what you started. Again with the attainable point, make sure you can actually complete a goal in the amount of time you've given yourself. Losing 10 pounds this week is not a very smart goal. You might be able to do it, but it won't be healthy for you, whereas losing 10 pounds over a month might be a reasonable goal depending on your starting weight. Let's think about finishing Christmas shopping early. Rather than just saying early (because early might be December 24), let's try to set a date. You could say I will finish my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. That gives you a reasonable deadline to complete what you are aiming for.

Now that you've set your attainable goals, check out our next post for more tips on how to stay motivated and achieve those goals! We would also love to hear from you. What is your top goal for this new year?

For more Thriftism, visit us at thriftism.blogspot.com. Thanks!