Aling your goals and intentions

Have you ever set yourself a New Year's resolution, and two weeks in you deem that you have failed and end up giving up, holding out and waiting for the next year to set new goals or give yourself another chance? Me too.

Not anymore, we are going to discuss why I hate New Year's resolutions, how to set achievable goals and intentions, and how to change your mindset so you can start setting, changing and achieving your goals at any point across the year!

Let's start off with the plain and simple, I HATE New Year's resolutions! Putting the pressure on yourself, that you HAVE to set yourself goals because it's deemed a 'social requirement', and that you HAVE to stick to them 100%, and if you 'fail' that you are a failure and have to wait till next year to try again... WRONG! New goals, intentions, pathways, routines, take time to set up and establish. You cannot merely wake up on January 1st and be a totally different person, it takes time to build and develop routines. Brian King (PhD) states that 'Habits are behaviours that our brain has learned to produce without thinking about it and making a resolution stick involves creating a new habit', through setting goals in any form, we have to change how our brain thinks, forming new connections and creating a habit.

Let yourself breathe, take time, allow yourself to slowly build your way up into these goals, that is how long-term goals, intentions and lifestyles are built.

Let's be more specific! If we know what we want, let's chase that, be strong, be brave, be bold.

Areas we can set goals in are hugely varied, but from picking those areas to spreading goals out across them is key to them being specific and achievable (we will dive deeper into that soon!). Areas that I personally like to choose my goals from are; personal, social, emotional, spiritual, developmental, educational and career. These are broad areas, but selecting a few areas to start with and listing goals under them is a great way to start. To grow intentionally and align yourself with who and where you want to be, focus must be on multiple levels and areas within yourself. Improvement and development in one area, increases reflection and development in others, they are syncronised, they align themselves and are parallel to each other, so use that energy to positively increase and grow in other areas.

When setting goals or intentions, they can be set at the start of the year, a month, a week, but let's be real, we can set them on a random Wednesday. It's a change in mindset, socially we are told a new beginning must be at the start of a social time period...wrong! It is all about YOUR mindset, if you are ready, start right then and there.

Start BIG, write down some of your goals or intentions and from that break it down into smaller, more achievable goals, even offering yourself rewards along the way. Knowing you are achieving something, pushes you to go further and increases motivation, therefore increasing your chances to reach those BIG long-term goals.

Two scientifically proven and tested methods of goal setting are, SMART goals and The 5 R's to goal setting.

Both of these don't have to be perfectly followed, take what resonates with you, what works for you and remember what works for one may not always work for you. These are guidelines to assist in setting goals and objectives, a criteria.

SMART goals;

Specific - what exactly are you trying to achieve?

Measurable - how will you know when you have achieved this? Is it a deadline, time frame, noticeable change.

Achievable - Is it genuinely possible to achieve? (this is where small and big goals come into play)

Realistic - Is it something that you really want, something that you will be able to do, is it going to positively impact you? (let's be real, we aren't going to set goals such as 'walk on the moon' or 'run 50km a day for a whole year, you know you best!)

Timely - set a time frame, or way to monitor your progress (again setting short term and longer-term goals works amazing for this)

SMART goals have been used and tested in numerous, scientific studies, Andrii Hertsyk states that participants who were involved in goal setting and recognise specific practice parameters (reflection), demonstrated an improved commitment to practice and increase physical capabilities (specific goals achieved).

5 R's of goal and intention setting;

Results - make sure there is a clear result you are trying to achieve.

Reasons - understand why you want to achieve this, without a clear and deeper understanding it makes it so much harder to pursue and achieve.

Reflection - allow yourself time to step back, gain perspective and examine what has and hasn't worked, asking yourself hard questions (is this positively impacting me?).

Resources - what do you need in order to achieve this goal? Once you have a set outcome, work out what you need and why you need in order to achieve this.

Responsibilities - You and only you can achieve this goal, you can have help along the way (I do offer goal setting sessions, and check-ins) but ultimately you are responsible for the change, strategy and achievement of these goals.

Camille Preston (PhD) states that by using the 5 R's to goal setting you will end up not only making better goals and intentions (more impactful and achievable), but you are also more likely to achieve and sustain your goals across a longer time period.

From these strategies take what you want, and use these resources to build goals and intentions,

develop a strategy to achieve them and allow yourself time to grow, reflect and make the changes you want to (remember you can make changes to your goals or strategy at any time you want!).

Goal setting is personal, your goals are personal, stop comparing them to what you think others are, or setting goals because you think you should, or others are setting those goals so you may as well... NO!!! This year we are growing individually and personally, we are blocking out external noise and aligning our focus within us.

References

How long does it take to form a new habit? Why changing our behaviour is so difficult. (Brian King, 2020)

SMART goal setting in Physical Therapy (Andrii Hertsyk, 2016)

The 5 R's of Effective Resolutions (Camille Preston, 2016)