Small Steps Forward: Goal Setting Part 1
Along the Pacific Coast: Malibu, CA, September 2016
I love the energy that comes with the new year: fresh start, blank canvas, new chapter. As 2019 comes to a close, we start to hear a lot about resolutions for the new year. There are varying numbers out there, and I had some difficulty finding current published data, but I found these older statistics to be quite interesting.
In Norcross’s study, about 60% of people who made resolutions for the new year abandoned their resolutions within 6 months, and 23% of them abandoned them within 7 days!1 So by January 7th, one quarter of those polled had already given up?!
This got me thinking about resolutions and why they are abandoned so quickly. One thought is that resolutions tend to be a bit vague and perhaps too broad. Examples of common resolutions come to mind like: lose weight, exercise more, and save money. We generate the idea of this resolution, but how many of us actually sit down, write it out, brainstorm exactly how we are going to lose weight, exercise more, and save money?
Instead of new year’s resolutions this time around, let’s reframe our thinking as we head into 2020, and join me as we work on goal setting. Let’s be concrete and deliberate. And I don’t want us to just think about our goals. Let’s get them out of our brains and onto a piece of paper!!
In a search of the literature, I found this interesting study on goal-setting by Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University of California. The findings: those who write down their goals are 42% more likely to achieve them. The participants in the study group who wrote down their goals AND shared them with a friend had even more success (62% of them had accomplished their goals or were at least half way toward achieving them).2
The study was small (149 people completed it), but it speaks to a few awesome pieces of news. If we write down our goal, we are clearly setting ourselves up for success, as compared to people who don’t write the goal down. And if we take that one little extra step of sharing our goal with just one friend, we set ourselves up for even greater chances of success in achieving the goal.
So, here is my challenge to you over the next few days, as we approach the end of 2020.
Grab a piece of paper or your training journal. Free write some goals you’d like to achieve in 2020 for just 5 minutes.
Reread what you’ve got, and circle the one goal that you’d really love to focus on for the year ahead. Put that goal on a new page and tack it up where you can see it daily (ideas include: refrigerator door, inside your closet door, above the washing machine).
Share the goal with a friend. And please share it with me too! (Jot it down on the MindfulMarathon Facebook page!)
In Part 2, we will discuss creating an action plan toward achieving the goal!
References:
1Norcross, J.C., Ratzin, A.C., & Payne, D. (1989). Ringing in the new year: The change processes and reported outcomes of resolutions. Addictive Behaviors, 14(2), 205-212.
2Matthews, G. (2015). Goal Research Summary. Paper presented at the 9th Annual International Conference of the Psychology Research Unit of Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), Athens, Greece.