The overwhelming majority of us have dismal New Year’s resolutions records. Yet, amazingly enough, despite our collective track records, most of us go through the same process every year:

1. Reflect on all the things that didn’t happen last year as they should.

2. Vow to do better in the coming year.

3. Rinse.

4. Repeat.

Every January, we boldly pronounce our resolutions — even if just to ourselves. Then, two weeks later, we find we’re already off course. Unfortunately, this process of making New Year’s resolutions is not much more than wishful thinking — a mere hope that we’ll do better. And, as I’ve written before, hope is not a strategy.

It’s no wonder Einstein once remarked, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Whether it’s for personal, professional or business purposes, I encourage you to stop making resolutions. That’s right — you heard me. Ditch the resolutions. This year, and from now on, I encourage you to set goals, not resolutions.

Difference between goals and resolutions

Resolutions are fun, but unfortunately, they’re typically meaningless — with little teeth or enforcement. In a word, they lack accountability. For example, as personal resolutions, perhaps you’ve found yourself resolved to lose weight, exercise more, spend more time reading, less time watching TV, etc.

If you examine your current approach to making resolutions (rather than creating real goals), you’ll discover barriers like these are causing you difficulty: the time frame is too short (or so long that it’s not reasonable); the involvement or dependency on other people; poorly defined outcome or a vague strategy for how to get there; or unclear responsibility or accountability.

The simple truth is most of us are trained to make plans, not to execute them. Our business schools are consistently top heavy when it comes to strategic planning, project planning, etc. But when it comes to execution, more often than not, we learned based on the “school of hard knocks.”

No matter the goal, it’s necessary to formulate a strategy that helps us to achieve our desired results. And herein lies the problem. Formulating strategy is one thing. Executing it is another.

How to set goals, not resolutions

Rather than continuing on a path of low probability, I encourage you to make your goals SMART. The following broader definition of the SMART acronym can help you to become more effective in goal setting:

S: specific, significant, stretching (Question: Is the goal well-defined; is it clear?)

M: measurable, meaningful, motivational (Question: Will we know when the goal has been achieved? How will progress be measured?)

A: agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented (Question: Is the goal obtainable?)

R: realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented (Question: Do we have the knowledge, talent and resources to achieve the goal?)

T: time-based, timely, tangible, trackable (Question: Do we have enough time to achieve the goal?)

Goal-setting recommendations

Visualize what you want.  Take the time to visualize when, where and how your goals will be carried out. What will it feel like when you have achieved a specific goal? When you take the time to visualize exactly when and where you will do something, you’ll have a significantly higher probability of meeting those goals.

Passion trumps wishful thinking. You have to care about your goal. It has to be important to you. The goals that are most attainable are those that you want more than anything else.

Become laser-focused. A shorter list of goals is more likely to be achieved than a laundry list. If you set too many goals, it’s difficult to keep them all in mind and make progress. When you lose sight of a goal, you begin to drift. Pick one goal — or two, or at the most, three — and make these your highest priorities.

Make your goals public.  You’ll find a much higher level of accountability if you’ve publicly committed your goals to someone other than yourself.

This increases the probability of reaching your goals. Want additional assurance?

Set a specific time (say, halfway through the deadline to achieve the goal) to meet with someone you trust to assess your progress.

So will this be a year of another broken resolution or will it be a year with real goals and outstanding results? Fortunately, the choice is yours to make. Don’t just hope, make it happen.

Eric Kurjan is the president of Six Disciplines Northwest Ohio. Six Disciplines brings big company process improvement to organizations looking to break beyond the status quo. For more information, visit www.SixDisciplines.com/Toledo or call (419) 581-2823.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Toledo Business Link.
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