What 2020 taught me about goal setting
Happy New Year! Although the pandemic didn’t end on the 1st of January, the beginning of 2021 still brings with it feelings of new hope and possibilities. One way to take advantage of this is through the long tradition of making New Year’s resolutions — I’ve made some myself, but I’m going about them a little differently this year based on what worked and didn’t work for me in 2020. Here are a few tips I’m trying to keep in mind when setting goals going forward:
Limit yourself
One thing I didn’t do in 2020 was give myself a deadline for when I wanted to complete my goals by, other than the very vague target of “by the end of the year”. This year, I’m trying something different: splitting the year into 3-month quarters and focusing on each quarter as it comes.
To give an example of this, here’s what my goals for studying Russian looked like in 2020…
Pass a B2 language exam
Read 10 books (I read one out of ten)
Write a short article every week
…and here’s what they look like in 2021:
Main goal: pass a B2 language exam
Q1 (January to March)
- Finish reading one grammar book
- Listen to one podcast episode in Russian every day
- Learn 200 new words
- Read 5 books
In the four days since this year began, I’ve done a good job at staying on track. At the end of March, I’ll assess the progress I’ve made and make a new set of goals that will push my closer to my singular main goal that I want to achieve by the end of the year. By setting a shorter time limit for myself and setting my goals in a way that forces me to interact with them on a daily basis, I’m trying to avoid the mindset that I fell into in the past year, where I would keep putting something off (for example, reading a book) because I could tell myself that I still had the whole rest of 2020 to complete it. If for some reason I end up not achieving my main goal, then I’ll be able to look back at the blueprint I made for achieving it and figure out what was missing so I can improve upon my methods a year from now.
Be specific
Like, I’m sure, many other people, one resolution I’ve made consistently every year was to “start working out”. Why does this never change to “keep working out”? As I’ve already mentioned, one problem is that I’m giving myself too broad of a time limit. The second problem is that “working out” is more of an abstract concept than a specific plan: if I make it a resolution to “start working out, at X gym, X many times a week (I can also add exactly when I want to start or what workout plan I want to follow)”, I’ve already taken a step towards my goal by setting clearer intentions for exactly what it is I want to achieve. Likewise, if you want to stop spending a lot of money on takeout in 2021, you can specify your exact budget for takeout or figure out what it is that would make you stop spending money and build a plan based on that (for example, if you want to cook from home but don’t know how to, make it a goal to learn one new recipe a week). The more time and effort you put into your goals, the more you’ll feel like you know what you’re doing, and the more likely you’ll be to actually follow through.
Find motivation
One thing I do often when working towards my goals is find some sort of motivator which can keep me going and hold me accountable. This can be something like my main goal for studying Russian this year (passing a language exam), which has a set time and gives me a clear picture of exactly what it is I’m working towards. Motivation can also come from other people — if you take the previous examples of working out or spending less money on delivery food, then you can ask one of your friends to go to the gym with you or come over once a week to cook with you. Sharing your goals with others, especially people who care about you and want to see you succeed, is a good way to ensure that you stay on track and won’t give up halfway through the year.
Be prepared to fail
As the whole world learned the hard way in 2020, sometimes external circumstances can prevent you from accomplishing what you want. It’s important to keep in mind that failing to achieve a goal doesn’t make you a failure overall — goals can almost always be rescheduled or turn into something even better than what they previously were. If you only have a few large goals for this year, try expanding your list and including a few smaller, easily achievable ones — that way when you look back at your year, you’ll be able to look back at all the small goals that were checked off and see that you still managed to accomplish a lot, even if your main goals were out of reach.
Have an amazing 2021!
