New Year Resolutions

Ah the infamous New Year Resolutions – the time has come for you once again! Did you know however, that the statistics for resolutions made every year look almost identical to the stats for new businesses? That’s right! The majority of businesses fail within the first 6 months and in the same way, most people have long-forgotten their resolutions by the time summer rolls around. So what can we do to be part of those few who succeed?

New Year Resolutions, in case you don’t know, are a set of tasks, goals, or rules you choose to achieve or start living by for the next year. Be it keeping up a healthy habit you have, removing a bad one from your life or starting a new positive trend in your life such as working out more or being more entrepreneurial. The issue with setting goals like this is that we either set them way too vague or we are expecting from ourselves a huge change to occur immediately – either in diet or workout regime or we look to have created a successful business out of nothing within an unreasonably short period of time. That’s simply not how it works. Here we will discuss two major topics:

• SMART goal setting.
• Delayed Gratification.

SMART goal setting

So, what does this latest acronym stand for? Well SMART is not only what your goals become after this method, but it’s also a well-respected method of goal-setting in corporations globally.

We start off every goal by making it Specific. Instead of saying I want to lose weight or workout more or become a successful entrepreneur this year, try specifying exactly what it is that you want to achieve. For example – I would like to lose (or gain) 12 kilograms to reach my ideal weight; I would like to workout 3-times a week until I get a set of 6 visible and toned abs; or I would like to set up a business of my own with which I can pay myself a salary of at least X amount in order to cover my bills and be financially secure.

Then we have to make sure the goal is Measurable. If we were to simply say I would like to lose weight, how would we ever know if we have succeeded? Does losing 1kg from morning till evening work or do you have a more specific and measurable way of setting this goal for yourself? Do you have a target weight or BMI for yourself to work towards? The exact same goes for businesses. Don’t just say “I want to be a successful entrepreneur”. Set yourself a goal, on pen and paper.

Rule number 3 is to keep your goals Achievable! This means you don’t set yourself a goal of doing 1000 push-ups on day 1 of your training or reaching 1 million euro in sales in your very first week after establishing your company. Make sure you place reasonable objectives for yourself and your business.

The 4^th letter is there to make sure you plan Relevantly. This means that if you want to live a healthier lifestyle for example a sub-goal could be to purchase exercising equipment for your home or a gym membership and investing in a dietician to work out a healthy meal plan for you. Likewise, when setting objectives for your business, be sure they are linked to your mission. If you want to be more entrepreneurial, going to different events or pre-accelerator programs such as ABLE’s Facebook Live event discussing What it takes to be an Entrepreneur or applying to our Spring Edition ABLE Activator can help you achieve your goals in 2022.

Finally you need to place a deadline for yourself. That’s why we need the goals to be Time-based. Set a deadline which accommodates your lifestyle. If you’re extremely busy every day, then maybe a longer timeline will be required. For a lot of people when it comes to New Year Resolutions, they tend to talk generically for the whole year ahead. I would recommend placing shorter deadlines or at least splitting up larger goals into milestones.

Delayed Gratification

Now that you have set your goals, it is extremely important not to expect results immediately and not to get discouraged at signs of struggle. On the path to achieving results, be it health-wise or in business, you can always expect there to be ups and downs. Reaching your goals will never be a straight line. The important thing to remember is that every day, every step you take, is leading you towards your final goal. No matter in what capacity, you have to remain with the mindset that you’re going in the right direction – especially after you have gone through the process of planning your goals and the milestones along the way.

Delayed Gratification means not taking a smaller reward today in order to wait and receive a larger reward in the future. That’s why you should always keep your goals in mind and know that it takes time to achieve them.

Written by Lenard Adanov