It’s the beginning of the new year/new decade and new goals and resolutions are buzzing. The new year is symbolic of a clean slate, and many people commit to different ways of going about their lives. While I’m more inclined to intention setting and choosing a word for the year, many folks prefer to set goals. When setting goals, it is important to set yourself up for success by creating goals that are attainable and chunked.
SMART Goals
The “SMART” in SMART goals stands for “specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.” I love this acronym because it helps me evaluate my goals and if they are something I can attain. This helps contextualize a broad goal, like “I want to read a lot more in 2020.” While that can be attainable, how is it going to be measured? What is realistic for you? While you and your friends may have the same goal, you likely have different abilities so reading “a lot more” will look different. A SMART goal for reading may look like “I want to read one book every two weeks until March.”
Progression Goals
You may hear people in your lives saying things like, “I’m going to take a social media detox in January” or “I’m going to meditate every day for 20 minutes.” While these all-or-nothing goals are well-intentioned, this may set you up to fail as these goals can be quite a big adjustment for someone who’s never taken a detox or meditated before. What I suggest is progressing towards that. For example with meditation, maybe begin to commit for five minutes a day, three days a week. Once you get the hang of that, then increase your time per-day or increase the days per week. With a social media detox goal, I may suggest trying half a day or one day a week detox, or choosing one social media account and starting there.
As I tend to lean towards intention setting, I’m going to invite you to choose one word for the year. This word can be a way for you to move through life with more intentionality. My word for 2020 is “open” and I’m going to allow myself to be more open to what’s around me. Blair’s word is “abundance” and she’s welcoming an abundance of health, happiness and success into her life. Maybe your word is “ease” and you’re wanting to live a more peaceful life, however, that applies to you.
Whatever you choose or don’t choose to do, we wish you a happy and safe New Year & New Decade.
Are you ready to share your story of RESILIENCE? You can do that HERE and thank you for being brave and sharing your journey.
Written by Alana Kaplan, Project Manager for the I Am Resilient Project.
