A guide to making (and sticking to!) your new year’s resolutions

Research shows that most people will quit trying to achieve their New Year’s resolutions by January 19 – not even 3 weeks into the year. Clearly, New Year’s resolutions (and other goals in general) are incredibly difficult to make and stick to. Because of this, I’ve created a guide to better goal-setting so that you can stick to your New Year’s resolutions for longer than 3 weeks.

Create SMART goals

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Making goals SMART is harder than it looks, so here’s a short introduction to the topic.

• Specific – say exactly what you want to achieve. Don’t say that you want to “be more fit”, instead set yourself a goal like “start working out” or “start cycling”.
• Measurable – this is incredibly important, because you won’t know if you’ve achieved your goal without it being measurable. If I wanted to improve one of my New Year’s resolutions (become fluent in Dutch in 6 months), I’d include what I mean by fluent – able to have a conversation with a native speaker, or to read a newspaper without an English-Dutch dictionary.
• Achievable – make sure that you can actually achieve your goal within the timeframe, otherwise you’ll be incredibly disappointed. If you’ve just started an instrument, don’t expect to be able to play complicated pieces immediately – set yourself the goal of playing an easier song.
• Relevant – one overlooked aspect of goal-setting is if this goal is actually relevant to your values and long-term plans. If you want to be a world-renouned jazz drummer in the future, don’t set yourself the goal of learning Swahili (unless you need this for one of your pieces for whatever reason).
• Time-bound – you have to set yourself a timeframe for you to achieve your goals. This makes it much harder to procrastinate as you’ve got a deadline to achieve your goal by. It’s also the easiest of the SMART qualities – you just have to add “by November” or “in 6 months” to the end of your goal. Your deadline does have to be achievable though!

Milestones are important

Once you’ve created your SMART goal, it’s time to create milestones. Milestones are things you want to accomplish within your time period that help you to achieve your final goal. Think of them as mini-goals. Milestones are incredibly useful for tracking your progress towards achieving your new year’s resolution, and people who break down their goals are more likely to achieve them because the goal seems less daunting. Not only this, but milestones also give you a sense of accomplishment, which can increase your motivation and help you achieve your goals.

Make a plan

Now that you’ve created your milestones, make a plan for how you’re going to achieve each one. In this plan, you need to combine all the habits and actions you’re going to take to achieve each milestone, and in the end, your goal. These can be incredibly simple, such as “practicing Duolingo everyday” and “learning how negatives work”. Make sure these mini-mini-goals are also SMART!

Create habits

Habits are incredibly important, and to achieve any goal, you need to start new habits or build off of old ones. From your milestones and plans, work out what habits you’ll need to start in order to achieve your goals. Create a habit tracker to ensure you’re making progress, and try clear out some time of the day when you can work on these habits.