The Dog Ate My Goals! How To Follow Through On Goals That Matter (Part 1)

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February is here and it’s officially that time of the year where most resolutions, goals made on Jan 1 have already been discarded. If you are one of those who find themselves making “dog ate your homework” excuses regarding your goals, it’s time to train the dog and claim your goals back.

“Approximately 80 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions have dropped them by the second week of February.” — Forbes, December 2022

For the last few years, I have started doing four simple things and I experienced achieving over 80% of my goals. These are simple steps and yet yield amazing results when done together:

1. Make your goals specific
2. Address all aspects of your life
3. Deep dive into your why
4. Expand “the how” by designing routines

Most new year resolutions are a by-product of peer pressure and guilt that lead people into committing something half hearted. There are different personas of failed goal setters:

1. The over-enthusiastic goal setter. Loves setting goals but sets too many goals, gets overwhelmed soon and abandons all the goals.
2. The siloed goal setter — Dreamer, sets goals in a vacuum. Doesn’t know how to incorporate goals into existing life.
3. The vision-less goal setter: “Why” is missing. Feels good about setting the goal when starting but loses steam pretty soon.
4. The imbalanced goal setter: Misses the big picture. Goals around only one aspect of life like professional life.
5. The non-committal goal setter: Goals are not specific, they are ambiguous — wants to get better at things but doesn’t define what success looks like.

The M-A-D-E framework can turn these types of goal setters to goal achievers.

M — Make your goals specific by writing them down

• Super obvious and yet most people don’t do it. It doesn’t matter where you write down your goals — in a beautiful planner, on a sticky note, google docs — what matters is you write them down and you refer back to your goals. I use a dedicated planner and carry it everywhere so that I can refer back to my goals and weekly and daily plan.
• When writing goals, make it specific and ensure you don’t have a wishy-washy goal. “I want to be better at my job” means nothing. “I will deliver research and a presentation on how to grow the business by March 31” is a very specific goal that can be tracked.
• There are many frameworks to make goals specific. I follow the SMARTER framework (Specific, measurable, attainable, Relevant, Time-bound, Exciting & Risky). Follow any that makes sense to you.

A — Address all aspects of your life

• When writing down goals, avoid being an imbalanced goal setter. Uni-dimensional goals seem fine for the short term but leave us unbalanced and dissatisfied in the long term.
• Most common goal areas are in the physical and career area of life — these are the aspects most of us want to get better at. Consider goals in the following areas :

1. Professional — career related skills, projects to accomplish
2. Health — exercise, wellness, increasing strength, mobility
3. Emotional / Spiritual — meditation, yoga, prayer, gratitude, journaling
4. Financial- saving, income, mindful spending, investing
5. Community — how will you give back to your community or world
6. Hobbies — things that make your soul happy

• Not all of these areas may be relevant to your current stage of life, but choose at least three different areas so that you grow as a multi-dimensional person.
• My recent goals have been to Meditate every day (Spiritual / emotional), Hold a handstand for 30 secs (Physical), Finishing my MBA strong (Professional), Having monthly parent-child dates with my children (Parental) and to re-start learning the Piano (Hobbies).
• A word of caution — don’t be the over-enthusiastic goal setter and take too many at the same time. For example — I have a lot of goals identified but I do not plan to re-start learning the Piano until after I am done with the MBA program.

In Part 2, I will share the second half of the M-A-D-E framework and talk about how to deep dive into your “why” and creating solid routines that set you up for success.

I would also love to hear suggestions and if the M-A-D-E framework resonated with you. Drop a comment.