New Year Resolutions - Plan SMART

Happy New Year! It is the time of the year to make resolutions.  Do you remember what resolutions you made last year?  Have you met your expectations?  Have you achieved your goals?  If you haven’t met any of your expectations or goals, or can’t even remember what resolutions you made last year, don’t worry.  We will start fresh. 

Before we start making resolutions or plans for 2018, let’s plan smartly.  Failing to plan is planning to fail.

S – Specific:  “I want to be better this year” is not specific.  “I want to increase the sales in my department by X%.”  “I want to improve my English vocabulary by reading English newspapers everyday”.. are specific goals.

M - Measurable: Define short term goals so you can evaluate yourself.  Make sure you record where you are now and where you want to be, and chart your progress.

Example 1 - your sales in December was $10,000.00.  Your goal is to attain $12,000.00 in January.

Example 2 – you are currently learning 10 new English words a week.  Your goal this year is to learn 15 a week.

A – Attainable: is your goal possible to reach?  If you set an unattainable goal, you will stress yourself out and be disappointed later.

R – Realistic: Being realistic and attainable ties together.  If your department has hired a new employee, then increasing sales is realistic and attainable, as long as the person is working hard.  If you are putting in 10 more minutes a day to study new words, then learning 15 new words a week is both attainable and realistic.

T – time targeted: you set a time frame for yourself.  In the example of learning 15 new words a week, 1 week is the time frame.