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It's that time of year again when you begin thinking about next year; about 2016 and what it will hold for you. Your mind turns to how you can take active steps to advance your personal life or career because there's just something invigorating about being able to start from scratch' on 1 January but how do you make sure you get to keep your resolutions?

 

It's not unusual nowadays for some people to be make fun of New Year's resolutions or to dismiss the concept because apparently most people break them anyway but the reality is that many New Year's Resolutions are actually goals (you can't break goals), and changing the way you think about them could lead you down the road to success.

New Year's Resolutions to give up smoking, losing weight, increase your income or becoming debt free are actually goals, and cannot be broken if you take the attitude that a goal is a process, not an either or resolutions are not ultimatums or china tea-cups that are over and done with when they break. Goals don't get broken; they simply remain unachieved until you try again.

There is however a difference between a stretch goal and an achievable goal. Big Hairy Audacious Goals like I'm going to run the Auckland Marathon in 1 hour 30' if you've never run a marathon before, or at midnight on New Year's I'm going to go cold turkey', are stretch goals and you may be setting yourself up for failure.

Part of the problem, says Harvard Business School professor and co-author of Goals Gone Wild' Max Bazerman, is that your ambitious goals put pressure on the people around you, like forcing your family to adjust eating habits they're not ready to change.

Rather than a supportive environment, you end up being pressured to stop this madness'. Added to that, goals that are too big can discourage you from future attainment, or simply end up being too daunting to take seriously.

The key, argues psychologist Karl Weick, is to break the BHAG's down into small wins, and to ensure that you have the competencies to complete them. Therefore your goal of completing a marathon in a super time might actually start with developing an efficient running style.

Here are 5 steps you can take to ensure more successful outcomes in 2016:

1. Think goals instead of New Year's resolutions

2. Consider your environment. Will your goal put pressure on others? How can you mitigate that?

3. Find somebody to support and mentor you towards your goal achievement somebody who identifies with what you're trying to do and may have already overcome the same or similar challenges

4. Break your goals down into small steps, and take your time. As the tortoise will tell you: Slow and steady wins the race .

5. Ensure you have the right competencies, tools and resources to achieve your goal.

Goals, or New Year's resolutions, can be powerful tools for positive change, but only if you approach them with a plan and realistic sense of what you can achieve.

Source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/goals-gone-wild-the-systematic-side-effects-of-over-prescribing-goal-setting
Source: https://www.mendeley.com/catalog/small-wins-redefining-scale-social-problems/