How to set yearly goals, a New Year resolution

I am sure you often wondered how to set yearly goals and how to make a New Year resolution that will stick throughout the whole year. It is that time of the year when you are set and ready to promise to yourself that you will do a lot of things. Many things bother you in the past year, and you seem to be determined to change it now.

Actually, the first plan that really worked for me was when I decided to change my life and move to Thailand. Then it might seem to some people that it is tough to achieve and that I will not be persistent enough to see it through. But, because I had a strong belief and desire, I started to make detailed plans for such a move.

This was, in fact, a three-year plan, but divided into each year. I slowly begin selling my business and move to a less urban area, to see if I am up to this way of life. After three years, I was ready. From then on it was easy, I bought the ticket, find accommodation with some friendly help and leave. To date, this was the best decision in my life. It completely changed my state of mind and was the first step to my path to full inner peace.

In the next post, I will try to describe in detail all the stops on that path, my tries and tribulations, successes and failures, and how I have learned from them.

Your plan is to have a better year than you had the year before. Many people start to make very ambitious plans but give up on them after just a few months.

How to set a plan

Setting plans is, in my opinion, one of the most important tasks you need to accomplish to have success. I can speak from my own experience. Every time I had the willpower to make some plan and resolution, it was much easier for me to accomplish the goal. It does not mean that I was blindly stuck to them, but They always stayed here to remind me of the path I need to take to accomplish something.

Still, my mindful approach, which is now part of my life philosophy, always reminded me to have high hopes but low expectations. I learned to rely mostly on myself, to do the best I can, and that results will come.

During all these years, even if I made plans, I would make a lot of mistakes in that process. In time I was able to improve, and now I am sure that I found the way to set and endure in accomplishing my goals and that I will better set you up for success in 2020.

Here are some tips that I find helpful when making yearly plans, and I hope you will find them useful too.

S.M.A.R.T. goals

My tips are based on well known S.M.A.R.T. principle, which means:

S – Specific: Well defined, Clear to anyone that has a basic knowledge of the project

M – Measurable: Know if the goal is obtainable and how far away completion is, find out when you have achieved your goal

A – Agreed Upon: Agreement with all the stakeholders on what the goals should be. In this case, I would say, have an agreement with yourself that this is really what you mean and what you want. In this case, those must be your goals and not goals driven by your surroundings, social groups, or media.

R – Realistic: Within the availability of resources, knowledge, and time

T – Time-Based: Enough time to achieve the goal, not too much time, which can affect project performance

In real life, that means that we often set vague goals for ourselves. We must have a clear vision of what is precisely what we want to achieve. Never say, “I want to be fit.” Say: “I want to lose weight, I want to be able to run the marathon, I want to practice Yoga regularly.”

You definitely need to make your goals measurable. It is the only way you can track your results. So, that will mean I want to lose 10 kg or want to practice yoga twice a week.”

When you are sure that this is indeed what you want, then be sure to define a time frame in which you are to accomplish this specific goal. If this is something that takes time, break down your activities by milestones, and set the particular quantity to each of them, so you will track your progress over time.

How to make your plans work

In process-oriented projects, you must track the progress of that process, so you know when and what corrections you need to make. You might wonder how to set yearly goals. Even the best ideas, if not supervised and controlled by precise measures and scrutiny, will fail. Control and improvement are necessary steps in achieving your goals. Be flexible to your plans, but not for your milestone checkup points. Set daily, weeks, and obligatory monthly checkpoints and stick to them rigorously.

You must also have a firm deadline for each of the steps and for the specific goal itself.

This is how you set your yearly goals. Your goals must not be easy to achieve, but at the same time, they must be realistic. On both ends of this, either it is too easy, or unrealistically hard, you will soon lose interest and give up.

Leave you less realistic plans for long-term planning. In that case, it might even help to have slightly unrealistic, over-the-top ideas to keep you on your toes throughout the years to come, but that is another story for another post.

Also, you must have the right balance between the desire to reach this goal and have a belief in doing so. When those two are not balanced, your goal will be doomed.

Some things can help you achieve your goal.

Write down your goals

First, write them down and look upon them frequently. Put this writing in the place that you check out every day, so your written goals will pop up every time. It is a good idea to share your goals with your friends or mentor, even in social groups. Of course, choose wisely which of the goals will be made public for which group.

In the end, be mindful of the number of goals you set. It is good to have one for each of the significant areas of your life but keep them manageable so you will not get lost in all the promises you made to yourself in the process of setting goals.

I hope this post will help you learn how to set your yearly goals and how to achieve them. Also, continue to meditate every day, be mindful, and do not give up.