It’s the time of the year when we should be thinking about our resolutions for the new year.
It’s almost a cliche to fail in your New Year’s resolutions. But that’s because people make all the wrong resolutions. Things like “I’ll eat healthier this year”, or “I won’t cuss out people who cut me off in traffic”.
The best resolution has two parts:
1) It’s measurable.
2) It has a deadline.
Measurable
A resolution is measurable if you can, at any given point in time, measure how well you’re doing at following the resolution. Not an all or nothing type of measurement, but a percentage measurement.
The problem with an all or nothing sort of measurement, which most resolutions people make are, is that if you make one single mistake, you’ve failed the resolution. You feel like a failure, and you give up in disgust because you couldn’t even keep a simple New Year’s resolution.
Forget that! Instead, make a resolution that’s measurable, so you know how close you are to following it perfectly. That tells you how much extra effort you need to make to improve your measurement. So instead of giving up, you’re motivated to try harder.
Make resolutions like, “I’ll eat organic food twice a week”, instead of “I’ll eat healthier this year”.
Deadline
This is the point in time at which you’ll be following your resolution 100%. A deadline is important for a resolution.
The deadline gives you the leeway to not do so well in the beginning. After all, you still have some time, so if you are only following your resolution 50% of the time, you can improve before the deadline.
The deadline also gives you motivation. The scarcity of time as the deadline approaches will encourage you to try harder in order to reach the 100% mark by the deadline.
My Resolutions
My Internet Marketing related resolutions for this year include:
1) Finish my first SBI! niche site by April 1st. This would require creating two new content pages every week, so that’s what I’ll use to track my progress.
2) Focus on the Google PPC training by going through one training section every two weeks, finishing up by April 1st.
Why April 1st as my deadline? My semester at the college ends in April, and my time then will be entirely consumed by end of semester grading and preparations. After the semester is done I’ll make a new set of resolutions for the summer.
What resolutions are you making for the New Year?
Personally, I do not have the habit of making yearly resolutions. That’s kind of bad, if you ask some people.
But this year, I’ve set some SMART blogging goals for my blog, so that I can be accountable for taking actions to fulfil those goals.
Like you mentioned in the post, the goals set should be measurable and have a deadline.
Yes, the “resolutions” I make are typically just short-term goals, but it’s a nice time of the year to call them resolutions and remember to make them.
Good luck fulfilling your goals!