Veterans Chamber of Commerce By Joseph Molina www.vccsd.org
Setting up goals in 2021 New Year New Path New years are special times for everyone. Whether you make it a big deal - standing under the lights in a warm embrace with the one you love, gathered around the new year cake with your family waiting, drafting a new year message you want to send to all your loved ones first - or just roll over like a new day, they are unique because just like birthdays they present a feeling of a new beginning.
Therefore, many new year resolutions fail, because people try to take on too much at once. Prioritize and breakdown the main Goal into small segments and try to just focus on one at a time. Take for instance, you want to change your money spending habits, your eating habits, your sleeping habits, yet you don’t know how these habits will improve your life. Habits take time to form and are lodged in our subconscious, meaning that we do not think about some of the mini-actions we take.
New years are mostly famous because of the new year resolutions. January 1st gives us a feeling of new beginnings and most everyone makes decisions and choices either mentally or by writing notes about changes or goals to be achieved in this new chapter. However, for most people it doesn’t take long before the enthusiasm dies down and people revert silently to their old selves.
Tip: Characterize the goal by placing it under a category, this will give you more clarity. Or set one goal in each category and break it down into mini-actions needed to successfully reach the goal. Create a timeline and actionable and measurable items on each step to clearly show you the progress. This removes ambiguity and vagueness.
Why do new year’s resolutions fail? Why do we find it difficult to stick to that decision or change of habit we decided with so much willpower? The old habit is harmful to our wellbeing, and the new one is great, and improves our life, yet we can’t stick to the new one – the weight loss program, the saving program, the self-care goal, etc, etc, etc.
Example of different categories you can place your goals include: Relationship goals work goals, spiritual goals, health and fitness goals and finance goals, etc.
Below are some practical and helpful tips that will help you have less disappointments and increase your chances of achieving your new year resolutions. 1. Define and characterise your goal We find that the major problem people experience is that they set new goals without “Clearly” deciding what they Really want the newly set goal to change. What aspect of their lives they want to change? Before you set a goal for the new year, characterise that goal by deciding what aspect of your life the set goal will help improve. This will help avoid complications and help you to measure your progress easily. TIP: To avoid being overwhelmed, it helps to focus on one area of your life instead of trying to change every aspect of your life at once. 56
WWW.HomelandMagazine.com / JANUARY 2021
2. Manage your time wisely The reason the first step of characterizing a goal is very important is that it makes measurements and monitoring of progress easier. New Year goals may fail if they are not time-based and/or measurable (keeping track at each step of the progress). It is critical to have realistic and attainable goals. Transforming your life completely doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but you must set goals that you can attain within 12 months and in a way that it can be easily monitor for outcomes. When setting goals, it is important to select goals that can easily be measured over a short period. For example, rather than stating that you will develop a stronger bond with your employees, you can say: I will schedule a Monthly .15 minute meeting with each of my employees to discuss professional development opportunities. This goal makes sense, it is short term and can be easily measured.