What to do before you create a New Year’s resolution

A few Decembers ago, I was doing a workshop at WeWork and we talked about goal setting for the year ahead. This is common practice because as the New Year approaches we tend to focus on what we want to change or what we want to do differently from a place of inspiration and hope.

In that workshop something stood out though. As we unpacked the topic of goal setting it became very clear that we all have different relationships with goals. Some people in that workshop didn't write down their goals out of fear that, if they didn't achieve them, they would feel like a failure. Other people write down their goals consistently to stay focused and monitor their progress.

A lot of that has to do with our upbringing, experiences, and our personal narratives. For example, how do we feel about change? How excited do we get when we think about doing something new? And how disciplined are we in pursuing it? What gets in our way? How will we hold ourselves accountable?

These are pretty big questions because they force us to go deep into our personal motivations.

That said, there are some best practices I’d like to share and myths I’d like to dispel when it comes to goal setting.

#1. Don't wait for a new calendar year to get started. Yes, it's exciting. Yes, it's a new “beginning.” Yes, we have been conditioned to operate around our calendars. But, if you think about it, it's an arbitrary frame that we set. The truth is we should all start now if we want to make incremental change. The past has happened and the future has not. “Now” is the moment you can do something different.

#2. Achieving your goals (and change) is a process. When we set New Year's resolutions, we tend to make a hefty list of all the things we want to change — we have high aspirations. We have this idea that by the end of the year, with all the days in between, we're going to achieve our goals on a smooth, linear path.  The truth is, however, that achieving goals and getting from point A to B is a process. Change is a process and we must treat ourselves with compassion, not judgment, as we go through that process that is anything but linear.

An example: Think about kids and how they learn to walk. They just don't get up and strut one day. They take a step, then they fall down. They they take two steps, and they fall down again. They step, they fall, and they try again. It’s a process. There is nothing linear about that path to walking. And just like that, there is nothing linear about our paths to changing behavior and to doing new things - to all of a sudden instill new habits that we deeply want. We have a lot of past experiences that influence our ability to change quickly. We should celebrate that, and also be compassionate about our baby-steps journey to making change.

#3. Start with a personal goal. We tend to set our goals from a professional context instead of a personal one because a lot of us form our identity around work and professional achievements. But no matter how you slice it, your profession is just one aspect of your life. It is not your entire life.

So start your goal setting process with a personal goal, not a professional one. For example, let’s say you want to become healthier this year. That could be your goal, and then establish some key metrics that you're going to hold yourself accountable to (e.g. weight, exercise, resting heart rate, sleep, etc.)

Other tips and tricks for your goal setting:

• Write your goals down, and share them with others — people who can help you, not people who will judge you or question you. People who have your best interests at heart (you know who they are)!

• Frame your goals a positive way and dig deep into your why. Your why will unearth your motivation and personal connection to what makes this goal so important for your life.

• Focus on the how achieving your goals will have an impact on others. The more you focus your goal on the impact it’ll have on other people, the more it's going to connect with you and keep you motivated when obstacles arise.

• Be realistic and strategic and ask yourself: Where am I now? Where am I today? Where do I want to be three months from now, or tomorrow, or a year from now? Begin with the end in mind.

• Understand what change is all about. All change curves look similarly, and like the curves you will experience setbacks. Like a kid learning to walk, you will fall down. There will be ups and downs, but stay committed to the process and see the change curve all the way through. A new and different normal awaits.

Goal setting is a well-researched topic, and not as complicated as we sometimes make it out to be. It is an intensive, however, because of our relationship with goals, our narratives, and the assumptions we make about change and the difficulty we have in forming/shaping new behaviors.

The good news is that we can challenge our assumptions as easily as we tend to create them. That is the beauty of this process and our leadership. We can make different choices every day.