Dallas, TX –
I’m not making any resolutions for the New Year.
Not that I ever make any resolutions.
It’s not that I don’t think there are any things I want to change or improve; I just don’t believe that making resolutions are the way to accomplish anything.
So, what do I do instead?
I make goals.
See, resolutions tend to have too much of a binary status.
We either keep them or we don’t.
And we either keep them starting from New Years Day, or we don’t.
And the moment we stop keeping them, even if only for a day, or a week, or whatever, they’re broken until we make them again next year.
“I’m going to start going to the gym every day after work!”
Then, a couple of days later…
“It’s too crowded at the gym, I’ll just wait a couple of weeks until everyone else gives up on their resolutions and stops coming…”
Next thing you know, it’s July and you still aren’t going to the gym after work.
Hmm, not exactly a recipe for success, is it?
However, with a set of goals, the whole attitude is a bit different.
Goals give me something to work toward, even if they’re only baby steps.
And with goals, there is no binary aspect. It doesn’t matter if I wait until July to do anything on them, they’re still my goals and anything I do towards achieving them is progress.
Let’s say that one of my goals is to be in better shape.
What if I start doing one push-up after I come home from work?
That’s progress towards my goal.
Just by doing that one push-up, every day, I’m in better shape than I was before I started doing them.
And at any time, I can increase to two.
Then three.
And then add in a squat or two.
Soon, before you know it, I’ve got a whole exercise routine that has become a habit that I do when I get home from work.
And I’m in better shape than I was before I started.
Granted, it’s not as good shape as I could get into by going to the gym and working with a trainer, but my goal wasn’t to be in the best shape I could possibly be in, it was to be in better shape than I was before I started doing my little after-work exercise routine.
And now that it’s a habit, I’m more likely to keep it up.
And at this point, it’s much easier to expand and stretch that habit.
I can increase the strenuousness of my exercise, a little at a time.
I can start going to the gym, in between seasons, when it’s less crowded, so that by the time the crowd comes back next New Years, or next swimsuit season, I’ve already got the habit going, and am more likely to continue, despite the annoyance of the swarming masses.
Another great thing about making goals instead of resolutions is that a goal doesn’t have an immediate timeline, and can be a long-term goal.
Let’s say one of your goals is to save a million dollars.
There’s no way you’ll be able to accomplish that within a year unless you bring in well over a million dollars during that year (actually, it would need to be over one and a half million once you account for the government’s siphon that’s attached to your paycheck).
Come on, if you’re bringing in that much, having a goal of saving a million isn’t much of a goal. That’s like making a goal of only eating half of what’s on my plate. I’ve already got it; I just need to set it aside.
No, with a goal like that, for most of us, it’ll have to be a multi-year goal.
You have no choice.
So, since there’s no way you’re going to be able to accomplish it within a year, it doesn’t matter how little you might be able to set aside into savings. Every little bit get’s you closer to your goal.
Let’s say you put all the change you have accumulated over the course of the day into a drawer each night when you come home.
Yes, I know that’s a bit of an anachronism in this day where everyone uses plastic to pay for everything. Who carries cash these days?
Well, for the sake of this example, let’s say you do carry cash, and use it to pay for most of what you might buy over the course of the day.
It’s rare that any purchase you make is going to come to an even dollar amount. Most will result in you getting back some coins.
So, when you come home, you take those coins you’ve accumulated and put them into a drawer.
Before you know it, you’ve got a substantial amount of money in that drawer.
I did an experiment where I put aside every five-dollar bill that I had in my wallet when I got home.
Only the five-dollar bills, no other denominations.
Within a couple of weeks, I already had over a hundred dollars set aside.
Within a couple of months, I had several hundred dollars in my stash.
It would probably have accumulated even faster, if I hadn’t kept raiding the stash every time I needed to pay for getting our lawn mowed.
Do you realize how often stores give you five dollar bills in change when they could give you a ten dollar bill instead?
Yes, doing this did cause me to burn through the cash in my wallet much faster than I otherwise would have, but I was amazed at how quickly what I was setting aside accumulated.
And every bit of that would count toward any goals I had of saving any amount of money.
It’s all about taking baby steps.
One step at a time.
But first, you have to know where you want to go.
You have to have a goal.
It’s like going on a trip. If you don’t have a destination in mind, you’re just wandering aimlessly.
That doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Just like while traveling, you can change your destination at any time.
But you still need a destination to be aiming for.
Otherwise, how do you know if you’re going in the right direction?
Or the wrong direction?
Or any direction?
Or just wandering aimlessly, lost in the woods?
So, if you’ve made any New Year’s resolutions, I encourage you to do what I’ve done, reframe them as goals.
You’ll find that it shifts your thinking, and your approach to accomplishing them.
It’s no longer a binary thing, where you’ve either kept them or not.
It no longer matters what, if anything, you’ve done towards them.
They’re still your goals, and you can still start taking baby steps towards them at any time.
I’ve got some that have been on my list for many years, and I’ve only taken maybe a half dozen baby steps toward.
But I’ve also got others that I’ve revised many times, moving the goal because I’ve made so much progress towards achieving them.
In the end, I think they balance out.
And, to me, that’s what matters…
Featured image by Michael Killingbeck, used under the Creative Commons license.
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