New Year’s Resolutions: How to Make Realistic Goals and Meet Them
It is a New Year again, which means it is time for resolutions. This year, ask yourself a few questions to ensure your goals are realistic and you can meet them.
Key Takeaways
- Specific, measurable, and time-bound goals are more likely to be achieved than vague and abstract ones.
- Having a plan and breaking down long-term goals into smaller, achievable ones can help with motivation and success.
- KURU offers products with innovative technology to keep you comfortable and pain-free while pursuing your goals.
This time of year is the perfect time to reevaluate your goals, make a few course corrections, and get on the path to an even better you. But how do you do that? All of us have looked out over the first week of January with a list of things we will do to improve ourselves over the next twelve months. Come March, it is a different story, and we have all but forgotten the goals that were so important to us just a couple of months earlier.
Goal setting and achieving were big businesses during the 90s, and they continue to be a major topic of discussion in professional and personal circles.
There are hundreds of books published on the topic of goals. You could read a new book about goal setting every day for a year and still not be done with all the available information. What works well for one person when it comes to goal setting might not work for everyone, and one of the tricks to achieving your goals is to find what motivates and inspires you. That being said, there are a few questions you can ask yourself to make sure that you are on the right path to setting realistic goals that you can meet.
Are your goals specific?
It is easy to set big goals, but sometimes, because those goals are big, they are also a little vague. The bigger and vaguer a goal, the harder it is to achieve and the harder to know when you get there. For example, if your goal is “Be More Fit,” how will you know when you have achieved it? Technically, that goal can be checked off after you go to the gym once, but it can also be the work of a lifetime. Make specific goals; instead of making a goal to be more fit, make a goal that you will put on your workout shoes and work out for 45 minutes three times a week.
Are they able to be measured?
So many of the goals that we set have no real way to be measured. How will you know when you have reached a goal if you cannot measure it? The goal to be more fit is a great example in this category. What does it mean to be fit? Can you lace up your running shoes and run a certain distance? Lift a certain amount of weight? Wear a certain pant size? Have a certain heart rate? Goals to be more successful, fit, and have more fun, along with a slew of grand ideas, can not be measured, so they are not goals. They are ideas. To set an actual goal, consider how you define the things you can measure. If being successful means that you have money saved for a rainy day, make a goal to save money for a rainy day. If having more fun means going on more vacations, make a goal to go on more vacations.
Is there a timeline?
How long is this goal going to take? Life-long goals are worthy and admirable, but it is sometimes hard to stay motivated. If you have a life-long goal, break it down so that you are achieving small goals as you go along. Do you want to have a fit and active lifestyle? Make a goal that sometime in the next year, you are going to enter a race. Do you want to lose weight this year? Do not make a goal to lose weight. Make a goal to lose 10 lbs by June. Give yourself specific goals with timelines.
How are you going to do it?
A goal without a plan is not a goal. It is a suggestion. If your goal is to lose 10 lbs by June, make a plan of how you are going to accomplish it. Are you going to count calories? Exercise? Use portion control? What are you going to do about the cake on your birthday? Are you taking Valentine’s Day off? The more detail you have put into thinking through and planning for your goals, the more likely you are to achieve them.
Are you in control?
This is a great season to set goals and to start working for a better you. At KURU, we know that a better you does not experience foot pain. Through our innovative KURUSOLE technology, you can get foot pain relief and prevent it. At KURU, our main goal is to keep you comfortable from the first to the last step. Experience ideal arch support to keep you on that treadmill, grab some travel shoes to get you through exotic markets and fascinating cities, and enjoy powerful technology to help you chase that goal, whatever it is. Let KURU help you meet your goals.
