Beyond SMART Goals — Tips on Writing Better New Year Resolutions

Every New Years Day for the past 15 years, I pause, think about goals for next year and get them down on paper. It helps re-evaluate where I am, and figure out what I want to do next. It’s my way of giving myself direction, and with it, a sense of control over my life.

As expected, some years are better than others.

When I started, my goals were fairly generic: like ‘be healthier’, or ‘finish my PhD’. It was more like a todo list of things. This was fine, but it was never clear when or how these goals would be achieved.

Over time, I learnt to get SMARTer — by that, I mean my goals became — specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound. I began to be more clearer. So rather than ‘write more blogs’, I moved to ‘write one new blog post a month’. It became clearer how and when I would achieve each goal.

But — I found that each year, no matter how specific I was, the list just didn’t get done. ‘Writing more blog posts’ or ‘exercising more’, seems like good things to aim for at the start of the year, but they never get seen through. Even when I revisited it every month. Even when I schedule it into my diary. Then I feel really guilty about it. A lot of it comes from these goals being things or habits that ‘successful’ people do; as a result, I think that by doing them myself, that I would be like them.

This year, I thought hard about my goal setting strategy. And came up with an improved list that I’m much happier with. Here’s what I did differently.

1. Add the problem you’re trying to solve

Rather than writing ‘write one blog post per month’, I began to think about why. Why do I want to write more? What is the impact on my life by achieving this goal? Maybe there different ways to achieve the same goal?

One example on my list was ‘Go to a weekly yoga class’. Once I thought about it, I realised that the problem was ‘my back hurts and I want to fix it’. Now that I know this, whenever I miss my yoga class, I can replace it with another thing that would help me fix my back.

By writing down the problem it helped me to really identify the underlying problem/goal/motivation that I wanted to achieve.

2. Combine goals together

There are 12 goals on my list this year. Rather than treating every single one of them separately, I started to look at ways to combine them. Are there things which relate to each other? Through the course of achieving one thing, is there another goal that I can weave into it?

For example, I wanted to go to travel more this year. I’ve not been to mainland Europe much and I wanted to do a ‘Paris to Berlin’ trip. Another goal of mine was also to be more creative this year: whether that’s making more games or writing more apps. It struck me that part of being creative means being inspired. And what better way to get inspired than to go on a trip to two of the most cultural cities in Europe? This thought spawned a sub-goal of filling a sketchbook and making something inspired from the trip as one of the things that I want to do this year.

Look at your list, thinking through how you would achieve each one, and then see whether there are ways that you can combine them.

3. Estimate effort points to be realistic about what you can achieve

This tip is straight from the agile planning process. For each goal/task, think about how much effort is required, and assign effort points to it. Then decide how many effort points you can feasibly do in a month, and schedule your goals as such.

For example, going to yoga might be 1 effort point, because it involves me making sure I go to the class. Reading a book might be 10 effort points (depending on the book!). The point is, you’re not Superman or Wonder Woman so don’t try and do it all. Scheduling in 50 effort points a month is unrealistic, unless you’re planning to make some drastic changes to your lifestyle. Decide what is achievable in a month, and be kind enough to yourself that you should only expect that amount to be done.

So, take each goal, break it down into smaller tasks, and assign points to it. Then think about how you can spread them out over the year. The point being — be realistic!

Bonus tip: Look at what you should stop doing, or remove from your life altogether

You can’t just add more and more goals or commitments into your life without something else going. Part of this exercise has to be about things that you want to, or should stop doing too.

I hope that helps anyone looking to set their New Year Resolutions. Good luck and all the best for 2016!