New Year's Eve is typically when we take stock of our year and what we've accomplished. And what we didn't finish, or in many cases, never even started. We had a holiday party at our house the other night, with our ultimate frisbee team, my triathlon-related friends, my fellow yogis. On the evite I had asked everyone to come with 1-3 goals for the new year. Part of me was doing it sort of jokingly, and I thought of having everyone write their goals on a board and then once everyone had had some holiday cheer, I would invite the guests to place bets on how long it would take each person to either give up on their goal or complete it. Instead, what I had them to is before they left our home, they had to sign our guest book - and if they didn't mind sharing, list their goals in the book.
The next morning it was really great to not only read people's kind messages to us, but also to read their goals. These were some of them:
- place top 5 in 25-29 Age Group National Championship
- Read more books
- Finish Ironman Lake Placid in 11:35 to 16:59
- run a 5k (with no walking)
- help secure funding for the Achieve Kids Tri program
- get a tattoo
- complete a Tough Mudder race
- run 3 times weekly from April through August
- take good pictures of everyone else doing triathlons
- complete my first triathlon
- run for office - again
- have a balanced life
- organize 12 rooms in my house in 12 months
- put myself first once in a while
- save $125/week for old age
- spend more time with the kids
- love each other more (married couple)
- be able to do a pull-up
And so on. Some really great goals! Obviously some may seem more difficult to others, depending on where we're starting from. Some goals are for physical health, some for financial health, others for relationships and others for personal growth. Some of these goals will be reached (actually, most of them, I believe, since this is a particularly motivated group of people compared to the average population) but some won't. Not for lack of motivation (as I said, they're all motivated people) but rather, because whether your goal is to read more books or to improve your marriage or complete your first triathlon, all goals need to be designed in such a way or we are setting ourselves up for failure.
The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go.
- Albert Einstein
I am a HUGE believer in goals. I think goals are so necessary that I am convinced that if we were all avid goalkeepers, far fewer people would be on anti-depressants (actually, any medication really), divorced, broke, unfit, unhappy.
The person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry - his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing... he becomes nothing.
- Earl Nightingale
When you have goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-driven (SMART), and you have them written down in a place that you refer to at least 2-3 times/day, you are very unlikely to allow your relationships, your career, your bank account and your body, mind and soul languish in mediocre status quo. If we aren't busy growing, we're busy dying and the same applies to our marriages, passions, finances, muscles, spirituality - you name it.
Having a SMART goal and referring to it often works for several reasons: it guides us when making all those little decisions we make every day, that lead to new habits; it gives us a sense of purpose and a feeling of control. Let's take one of the above goals from my friends' list: spend more time with the kids. I don't know anyone who thinks they spend enough quality time with their kids. Even a stay-at-home parent, when s/he really thinks about it, will admit that s/he feels s/he doesn't spend enough uninterrupted, focused time with each child. As it stands now, the goal isn't SMART, so I see it as a resolution (to be broken) rather than as a goal. A SMART goal would look more like this:
Spend 30 minutes a day with the children - no electronics or phones, etc - and the children take turns picking the activity.
Going further, the goalkeeper may decide that every evening, 8:00-8:30pm, when all dishes are done, homework put away, and the kids are in pj's, there will be some quality time with the kids. Could be snuggling, reading together, praying, playing Scrabble, whatever. Studies show that when a behavior is done for 3 weeks, it now becomes a habit. So do this for 3 weeks and now you have a positive, powerful habit of communicating with and enjoying your children. Every time you have an opportunity to add another activity to your busy week, your decision will be easier as you can decide whether it will impact your new habit, and if it fits into your core values (putting family first). Too often we are wandering adrift, without a clear focus of where we're going or where we want to be, and we end up feeling frazzled, out of control, and back where we started. Not having goals in the major areas of our life - relationships, career, finances, health, personal development, spirituality - is the same as sticking your third-grader in Tokyo without a map or a destination for a few days. He will have some adventures, have some fun, make some good decisions and some poor ones, and probably end up lost. Furthermore, having SMART goals in each of the above areas gives you a roadmap for achieving the elusive "balanced life." If you know where you want to be in each of these areas, you'll make much better decisions that will lead to feeling more balanced. If one of your goals is to finish your first 5k race, running the whole way, on April 30th, and another goal is to save $125 per week, when your college friends invite you to a very tempting weekend in Las Vegas on March 15th, you can objectively analyze how this fits into your goals - and make the decision relatively easily.
So, it's January 1st, 2011 - turn those resolutions into SMART goals and get to work (and play)!
(P.S. I began this posting on Dec. 30th but I finished it today, Jan. 1st, because sitting at the computer while the family was awake was not congruent with my goal to spend quality family time over the holidays :-) )
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I loved this post. It has gotten me to really think about living goals specifically and with great attention. You have really helped bring some of these ideas to the forefront. :) Thank you xoxo
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