Achievable Goals: What I Learned from Failing at New Year’s Resolutions

Hi, Rebecca here! As I have gotten older, I have found myself becoming more goal-oriented. As a kid, I never set goals for myself – not even New Year’s Resolutions. Over time, however, I found myself in more situations where I was asked to set goals. This increased when I joined the color guard staff at Fred J. Miller Summer Clinics. There were “yearly” goals (for the summer), weekly goals, daily goals, and sometimes even goals for one four-hour block. This wide range of goals led to tremendous improvement, and I decided that I needed to start setting more goals for myself and my students. I began with a very common goal, a New Year’s Resolution.

The Problem

New Year’s Resolutions are not achievable goals. At least not for me. I’m a bit of a perfectionist so when I make 5 mistakes before February, I lose my motivation to continue. My New Year’s Resolution in 2018 was to work on my master’s thesis every day. This was a terrible goal – completely unachievable. 

At the time, I did not have a good understanding of how to set myself achievable goals. I don’t think I even attempted a New Year’s Resolution in 2019 because, by this point, I had zero confidence that I could achieve it. Something changed throughout that year, and I decided that I would set a New Year’s Resolution for 2020. And this time, I was going to do it differently. 

New Year’s Resolution 2020

My New Year’s Resolution for 2020 was to complete 12 month-long goals. After carefully considering my past goal-setting successes and failures, I decided that this was a format I was way more likely to succeed in. I always enjoy completing 30-day workout challenges (like the 30-Day Plank Challenge), so I knew month-long goals were within my reach. I also love crossing things off of lists. That sense of accomplishment motivates me to get work done. I figured by completing smaller goals, I would be more motivated to finish the whole year. 

We all know 2020 didn’t quite go as planned. So, you probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that I failed at my New Year’s Resolution. I only made it to May, completing 4 months successfully. Looking back, I realize that some of my monthly goals were not actionable or specific enough. This contributed to my failures, and as I predicted, after a failed month, my motivation for continuing the rest of the year started to disappear. 

2021 Goals

This year, I am once again going to strive to achieve a different goal each month. Given how far I got last year and the fact that other people can now hold me accountable, I think I have a good chance at succeeding.

• In January, my goal is to break my social media habit. This is not necessarily to spend less time on social media but to make sure that the time I do spend online is a choice. Several times this last month I found myself clicking on Facebook out of habit and after watching The Social Dilemma, that terrifies me. This goal is a bit broad (it really isn’t a great goal), but I’m sticking with it since it encompasses several actions I am taking to break the habit.
  
  These include: Turning off most notifications, not looking at social media when I first wake up, and making myself put my phone down when I realize I’ve picked it up or clicked on Facebook out of habit.

• My goal for February is to read two personal development books. I love to read, but never make these types of books a priority. Ideas include Grit and Thinking in Bets from Jordan’s list among others. This goal is very specific and measurable, and yet it took me a long time to decide on. I love to read and when I don’t have many other obligations, can easily read 13 books in a month. The tricky part about setting this goal was determining how much time I would have to spend on it, and how motivated I would be to read books in this genre.

I do not have a plan for the rest of the months yet, but I know I need to consider them carefully before I begin each month. My biggest focus for these goals is achievability. 

Rebecca’s Tips for writing Achievable Goals

Knowing that goals need to be achievable and knowing a particular goal is achievable are two different skill sets. The latter is much harder. Here are a few tips I use to set achievable goals for myself or my color guard.

1. Know your motivating factors. 

Look back on past goals that you or someone else has set for you. Which goals were you “most successful” at? Where did you shine? Think through different parts of your life. What do you enjoy doing the most? What do you prioritize?

Start to consider your motivating factors. What can you do to motivate yourself? This step isn’t something you have to do every time you set a goal for yourself, although it is good to revisit it every so often. At this point, I have a pretty good idea of my personal motivating factors, but I take care to reevaluate the motivating factors of my guard every season. As members come and go, the motivating factors of the guard change drastically each season. We take some time at the beginning of each season to let the students express their goals for the season. This in turn helps us set better goals for them. 

2. Focus on the outcome.

Know your desired outcome and know the reasons behind it. My New Year’s resolution in 2018 to work on my master’s thesis every day was completely unachievable. Yet I set this for myself because I knew I needed to finish my thesis in just two semesters so that I could graduate in December 2018. I achieved this outcome, but I did not meet my goal.

I thought only briefly about the outcome I wanted then jumped immediately to the first thought I had on how to achieve it. My mistake was not carefully considering all of the options and all of the possible ways to achieve this outcome.

Young performers often fall into the trap of setting goals regarding scores. Those sound like, “We were 3 spots away from finals last year. This year my goal is to make finals.” It is fine to set goals around scores, as long as you carefully consider whether or not that is the outcome you want. Do you want to score better than you did the previous year or do you want to be better? What does it mean to be better? A cleaner, potentially easier show? Or a hard show that may not be as clean and may not score as well?

Carefully consider what you want the outcome to be and why. Then brainstorm as many possible ideas for achieving that outcome as possible.

3. Plan your time/effort/energy.

It is very easy to take on too much when you are hyped up for something new. We can get excited as planning for a new season commences and start leaning towards ideas that will take too much time, effort, or energy.

Be honest with yourself about how much work you can achieve. For a while in grad school, I would carry three textbooks home every day telling myself that I would work on homework that night. I never did. I knew I would have time the next day to finish my work, so when I got home I spent my time doing other things all the while feeling guilty for not working on the homework I promised myself I would do. Finally, I accepted that I wasn’t going to do homework at home and I changed my routine. I would stay at the school a little longer to finish my assignments, then go home to enjoy a guilt-free evening.

Setting boundaries is important and we need to account for time off when we set our goals. Always ask yourself how much time/effort/energy your goal will take. Then ask yourself if you really have that much time/effort/energy to give.

4. Set the bar low.

When in doubt, set the bar low. This is not to say, don’t push yourself or your team. It is good to remember that overachieving a goal can sometimes do more for your motivation level than failing. So set the bar low and raise it incrementally. Your goals should be like a game of limbo. The first few should be easy, a warm-up. Then as the season or your own personal goal setting progresses, start to increase the difficulty.

Start with just one thing. I often ask my students to pick one thing to make better on the next run, even if I’ve given them ten things to fix. I want them to focus on one thing and fix that. Then, on the next rep keep the first fix and fix one more thing. Ideally, in ten reps we will have fixed all ten issues. I find more success in breaking up the goal than when I ask them to fix everything at once. Asking for all the fixes is too much to think about when you realize they are also spinning, moving, counting, performing on top of trying something new!

5. Set up a motivating environment.

Put yourself and your team into an environment rich with motivating factors. Tell someone your goal to create accountability. Create a reward or prize for completing the goal. Set yourself milestones/subgoals to work towards. Remember your motivating factors? It is time to use them. Put yourself in the best position that you possibly can to achieve your goal. 

6. Acknowledge your achievements.

If you are achieving all of your goals, it is time to raise the bar! You should try to push yourself just enough so that you fail every once in a while. Then look back on those failures and be sure to find 5 successes within them. Did you learn something new? Improve a skill? Reach a milestone? Inspire someone? Make a difference? Change your mind? Be proud of any and all of the progress that you make towards a goal. In most cases, any progress at all is better than none.

7. Never be afraid to abandon a goal that no longer fits your outlook.

Life happens and sometimes the outcomes we were working towards no longer make sense. This is the area where I can personally improve the most. I am just starting to realize that one of the more common reasons I am unable to achieve a goal is because that goal no longer makes sense.

If my priorities have shifted so much that I stop working towards a particular goal, then I probably need to update my goals. This brings us back to focusing on the outcome. Is that still something you want? Is there a better way to get there? Reevaluate as needed and set yourself a new goal to work towards.

I am all for setting goals for personal growth. New Year’s Resolutions just don’t work for me. I’ve chosen achievability over popularity and can’t wait to see the results!

What goals do you have for 2021? How do you ensure the successful completion of a goal you have set for yourself or your team? Let us know in the comments!