5 Golden Rules To Set Goals For a New Year

The new year is the perfect time for setting goals and making positive changes, but if we’re not careful, our goals can easily become too ambitious or unrealistic. To increase your chances of achieving your goals this year, you have to set your goals in a practical way, so that you can achieve them before the year ends.

In this article, I’ll tell you systems to how you can set goals can can achieve them. If you want this to be the best year of your life, then I’m going to tell you 5 things which you have to do one by one. And I am also going to tell you an excellent system of goal setting, which will help you to make your new year the best ever.

1. Analyze Your Life

Suppose, there is a person who has lost somewhere. He calls Emergency and says, ‘Sir I have to go to a city, tell me how can I go?’ If that person will ask a question like this, then what would be the first question of that person who wants to help him?

His first question would be, ‘Okay let me tell you, how to go there, but first tell me, where are you?’ That person says, ‘No sir, I don’t know where I am’. Will it be easy for that person to tell him the right way? No.

It would be very hard! Similarly, it is said that, ‘How can you go forward if you don’t know where you are coming from?‘ To change your life, the first thing you have to do is ‘know about your current state’.

Suppose there is a sculptor, if he wants to make a lovely statue, what would he do first? First, he will look at that big stone! He will see, from where he can cut that stone. After looking at it, and understanding the possibility, He will use his hammer and slowly hit it with a chisel, which would make an excellent shape out of that stone, and will make a statue out of it. And while doing this, remember he won’t attach himself to stone! Because he knows, he will have to cut stone!

Similarly, if you want to give your life a good shape, first sit and analyze well, that, in which situations are you now? Specifically, divide your life into four areas.

Now rate yourself in all areas. And try to find out what is wrong in which area. So that you can know the truth!

2. Create a Vision Board

Once you’ve understood where you are, then, first of all, set a plan. Here you’ve to create a vision for yourself, that how you want to see yourself in the future? How would be your ideal self? What kind of person do you want to be? What does that person do? What does he eat? How does he live? How does he talk? Where does he spend his time? Write answers to all these questions. What kind of life your ideal self wants to live?

Define your ideal life! If you want, create a vision board, where you start putting pictures of your dream life, put a picture of your dream body, put pictures of your dream house, and write all things in detail so that your brain starts understanding the new reality, you are creating. That what do you want?

Because remember, until a person has a clear vision, until he doesn’t know where he is going, he will keep wandering here and there and will never be able to move forward in life! After creating a vision board.

3. Set Daily Routine

Sometimes we get stuck in a cycle! It means you must have seen, the roads in the old village, the tractor passes so many times that there is a pothole there! That is called ‘Rut.’ Similarly, when we start doing the same things again and again, we also get stuck in a ‘rut’, from which it becomes very difficult to get out.

It becomes very necessary to break the cycle. To break that cycle, it is very important to set a daily routine for yourself. It has been seen maximum times, you’ll have to set an excellent daily routine if you want a drastic change in your life.

Like, recently I was reading a book, in which, when the author was performing very badly in his life, then he started making a new ritual, he used to go in front of the mirror every day and look at himself and used to tell the truth that look how fat he has become!

And then he used to shave his beard and head. And at that time, they used to tell the truth to himself.

It was his routine which compelled him to see the truth, and helped him to take action in the right direction.

Similarly, you also can set a routine for yourself. For you, that routine may be journalizing in the morning, going to the gym in the morning, or reading a page in the morning. Focus on creating a new routine.

4. You can’t change who you were

The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old one but on building the new one’.

Before starting the journey of changing your life, assume that you can fail. Your life is the way it is now, no matter how rut you are in, and no matter how many bad habits you have, it took you many years to develop these habits!

The way you are, it’s 100% never-ending! This is because, in the journey of changing any habit, you must remember that you can’t forget any habit. For example, if you had learned cycling in childhood! You may not have cycled for many years,! But if you return to cycling, you will be cycling again quickly!

Because habits settle in our minds very fast! So remember this thing, you’ll have to be aware of your bad practices. You’ll find many triggers in life, that will urge you to do those things again by distraction!

You’ve to stay strong at that time. You’ve to develop a strong system! At that time, you have to remember what Socrates said.

‘The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old but building the new one.’

You’ve to focus on making new habits. How can it happen? How should you make new habits? For that, this last point will help you, is:

5. Smarter Goal

During the Muromachi period of Japanese history, the Shogun of Japan who is called the highest military leader, was Ashikaga Yoshimitsu!

Once broke his favorite tea bowl, which he had brought from China! It was very lovely for him, he sent that tea bowl to China for repair.

And when it came from China after getting repaired, he got angry! Because from where that bowl was broken, those Chinese had fixed the staples at that broken area.

Because of this the beauty of that bowl got ruined. Shogun was very angry with this thing! But still, he thought, what he can do! To deal with this situation, he gave challenge to all his workers, to make that bowl beautiful as as possible.

When he gave this challenge to his workers, from here, an idea was born, which is called Kintsugi! An artisan took all those broken pieces and pasted them with such a glue which had a golden powder on it! After which that broken bowl was looking more beautiful than earlier! Because gold was shining on it.

Similarly, if you want to make your coming year the best year, you’ll have to apply the golden glue on all the broken areas of your current life, which will make your life better than ever!

What will this golden glue be made of? How will your new habits form? It will happen when you set smarter goals instead of traditional goals.

What does SMARTER mean?

#1. S in SMARTER stands for Specific!

According to research by Forbes, around 80% of people fail in their new year resolution! The most crucial reason behind it is that their goals are not specific.

For example, a person aims to lose weight! or want to make more money! These things are said in the air because these are not specific and your own mind will not take these things seriously!

It won’t give motivation because it doesn’t know what to do exactly! So, the first thing you’ve to do this year is, set a specific goal. Instead of saying that ‘I’ll lose weight’, define how much weight you want to lose in order to be in the best physique.

Suppose your current weight is 90kg, you can set a goal that I’ll have 75kg at the end of this year. And to achieve it, I’ll have to lose 1-1.5kg every month. When you set yourself a specific goal, then earning that thing will become easy for you!

#2. ‘M’ Of Smarter Stands For Measurable.

You know our brain believes more in those things which it can measure. For example, you see, people in our country think in choosing a conventional career path, not in becoming entrepreneurs. Why? Because in traditional paths, it is explicitly told by measuring that first, you have to do 10th, then you have to do 12th, then you have to give entrance exam, have to do a 5-year course, and then you’ll become this, and then you’ll get a job! This means, things can be measured!

Whereas in entrepreneurship, things can’t be measured. If you start becoming a businessman, it can take you two, three, or even five years. But the good thing is it can take one year also. Because it has no specific measurement, people don’t even enter inside it! And this is our problem! So, try to your make goals measurable as much as possible.

Like, for example, I’ll start reading books this year. Instead of setting goals like this, you say that ‘I’ll read 12 books this year’. And to finish 12 books, I’ll read ten pages daily! When you set a 10 pages/2 pages/1 page goal, which can be measured, then that thing will become 10x more achievable for you!

#3. Smarter’A’ Stands For Actionable.

Sometimes people set goals that are not actionable. For example, I am going to make my relationship very strong. It sounds exciting but what’s the action behind it? What specific can you do? Well, this thing isn’t defined! That’s why that goal is not achieved!

On the other hand, if you want to take an actionable step, then you can think like this, ‘When I’ll go to my home after working for 8 hours, I’ll invest one hour in my relationship’! ‘Will spend with them.’ ‘Will have food with them! This thing is more actionable!

#4. Risky.

Many times, people set goals, but those goals are very reasonable and attainable!

But in actuality, we do it’s the opposite! Seeing the goal you feel fear or doubt. Actually, that is the real goal because it motivates you to do more than your potential! For example, a study was done in 400 goal-setting experiments.

Where researchers found that those who keep challenging and long goals, their performance is 2.5x better than those who set manageable goals for themselves.

It sounds weird and counter-intuitive. But the reason behind it is our limiting beliefs. For example, if you think that ‘I’ve to finish one book in a month’, and to finish a book, for example, you have to read 2 pages a day. When you go to do it, you’ll easily do this.

And because it is easily achieved, you’ll stop enjoying it. You won’t feel challenged, and then you won’t do that work.

Then, if you set a goal for 2 books instead of one book, which is a little bit difficult for you, which is a little bit challenging for you when you do this, you’ll have fun because you’ll be challenging yourself and growing yourself!

And I’ve noticed it too! If we keep a simple and straightforward goal, the brain will think it is very easy and isn’t that worthy it! That’s why we don’t do that again!

Smarter ‘T’ Stand For Timekeyed.

Lots of people make this mistake. They set their goals time-specific, but they don’t define the time to work on those goals. Due to this they get ‘someday sickness.’ That means, I’ve to achieve this goal, but I’ll do it tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.

I’ll start working on it tomorrow. Because of this, that work never gets done! In a study, when a patient with heart disease was warned and was advised to exercise, those participants did more exercise. There was a 50% increase in the chances of exercising for those people who had set a specific time to exercise.

That ‘I’ll do exercise daily at this time.’ So you also do this thing. Give yourself a time frame to work on.

Smarter ‘E’ stands for Exciting

Your goal should always excite you! If you’ve set such a goal that makes you feel drained and demotivated, the chances of achieving that goal are significantly less! On the other hand, if you set very exciting goals for yourself, and attach a strong ‘WHY’ with that goals, why do you want to achieve that?

Then you are one step close to achieve that goal.

R of SMARTER comes for Relevant.

Maximum people do one more mistake, they try to do everything themselves! Like, they have to work on a job themselves, then have to do other work also, have to travel, have to do the shopping and work on their health, That’s how those people try to do many things!

Whereas you have to understand that we can’t do all things. We have to define what things are relevant for us!

It is essential for us to do relevant things as much as possible! There is a lot of ego in our mind, we think that we can do a lot of things.

Whereas the 80/20 principle also says that 20% of actions will generate 80% results. So focus on those 20% things which are most reverent for your big goals. Pursue those things heartily! If you do all these things.

Summary

First of all analyze your life where you are. Then create a vision board for yourself! So that you can know where you’ve to go, to keep taking action daily, to reach there. This means, setting a daily routine for yourself! That’s important.

Next, remember that it’s not easy to change yourself! Your brain may go back to old habits! But creating new habits to avoid those old habits. And to develop new patterns, you’ve to remember to set SMARTER goals.

SMARTER ‘S’ stands for Specific. ‘M’ stands for Measurable. ‘A’ stands for Actionable. ‘R’ stands for Risky. ‘T’ stands for Timekeyed. ‘E’ stands for Exciting. And last, ‘R’ stands for Relevant.

Your new habits should be related to SMARTER goals. This means, those goals which are specific. Don’t just lose weight, but attain 75 kg! It should be measurable, which you can measure every day!

Third, it should be actionable! It should be clear what action you can take! Then that thing should be risky too! If it is simple, it won’t excite you! There should be a little challenging element in it. It should be Timekeyed.

It’s essential to specify the time for the new habit you are forming. And remember all these things. It’s essential to have exciting goals. Whatever your goal is, it should be exciting. And last, whatever thing you’re going to do should be relevant.

I hope that this blog has helped you in setting a goal for this new year. And I hope that you will achieve it too.

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