Goals Vs. Resolutions

January 31, 2013 at 8:28 am (Uncategorized)

I’m not sure I’ve ever written about this in text, but I adamantly do not believe in resolutions. Someone recently asked me about my New Year’s resolutions, and made me cringe in the process. While the word resolution implies a certain amount of commitment, I think that most resolutions involve very little commitment and act as little more than lip service. 

So instead of resolving to make a year better, I think acting on it is way better. And I don’t think it’s about years as much as day-to-day. I strongly believe in goals and goal-setting. I think my affinity for goal setting started back in the day when I worked at the shelter and set goals with the residents in housing. We would sit together, come up with some grand overarching goals, and then create steps to meet that goal. Additionally, these steps and goals themselves would be reevaluated on a weekly basis to ensure that they were realistic, practical, and attainable.

And therein is the big difference between resolutions and goals. Goals can be achieved. Resolutions generally contain little strategies, adjustments, or true plans. Buying a membership to a gym hardly serves as a plan if a person doesn’t have time in their schedule to go. 

Good goals contain a few important elements:

1. They are personal and individuals intend to meet them. If a goal is assigned to you, you don’t take ownership of it, and let’s be honest, you probably don’t care much if you don’t achieve it. This is how I felt when I worked at Hallmark and they made sales’ goals for the day. I really didn’t care. I smiled. I talked about product. I got paid. There was nothing important or intentional about it. It wasn’t a goal I cared about meeting. These external things aren’t particularly useful goals, even if they are “good for us” or things we want to change.

2. Goals have to be incremental. I’ve set large overarching goals for myself over the years. I achieve few of these. However, when I break them down and they seem manageable I can do it. For example, finishing a PhD seems like an insurmountable task. But finishing coursework was doable. Finishing candidacy was doable. Getting into the field seems to be doable (God-willing I’ll be there in a week or two). Small, incremental steps make goals more manageable and less terrifying. 

3. Goals must be measurable. Setting a goal like “I will love my family more” doesn’t help you to achieve it. Who can measure love? But setting a goal like spending time with them–that’s measurable. 

Anyways that’s all for now~