Today we´re starting a new year, happy 2023! 🙂
It´s usually the day when, after reviewing the year that´s just gone (and why not, thanking it for everything it brought to us, and what we learned from it), we begin to think about what we want to change or achieve from now on.
Many people do this in the form of new year´s resolutions: cosas como hacer más ejercicio, alimentarse mejor, ahorrar… El problema es que si lo dejamos así, como una frase genérica, es muy difícil llevarla a la práctica de manera efectiva y duradera. Muchas veces se acaba convirtiendo en lo que en inglés se llama «wishful thinking», desear que pase algo, y esperar que se cumpla como por arte de magia.
Let me propose to you two other options: one is choosing a new habit you want to establish, and another one is to set a goal or objective to achieve for yourself.
I hope to be able to talk more about habits in the near future: my reading list for this year includes the book Atomic habits, by James Clear 🙂
About goals and objectives I can tell you a bit more, because they´re an essential part of any coaching process. In coaching, we work with the SMART acronym when defining goals. Leaving aside the meaning of the word itself, each letter in the acronym points to a characteristic of a well defined goal:
- S de Specific – Específico: the more specific, the better: what exactly do you want to achieve?
- M de Measurable – Medible: how will you know that you have achieved it? What measure will you use?
- A de Achievable – Conseguible: is it possible to achieve that goal?
- R de Realistic – Realista: how realistic is this for you at this moment?
- T de Time-bound – puesto en el Tiempo: when do you want to achieve it by?
There are some variations of this acronym, but the idea is basically the same: making the goal as tangible as possible, bringing those generic and vague ideas "down to Earth", so that they don´t stay up in the air like nice words that are easily swept by the changing winds.
And while we´re at it, why not making our goal even SMARTER, adding two more letters?
- E de Ecological – Ecológico: aquí no me refiero al medio ambiente en general, sino a cómo afecta este objetivo a tu entorno en particular (tu familia, tu trabajo, tu tiempo libre…) ¿Qué o quién se va a ver afectado por tu decisión de perseguir este objetivo? ¿Les va a afectar positiva o negativamente?
- R de Reward – Recompensa: what´s going to be your reward once you achieve that goal? What do you want it for? What value is it going to bring to you? How are you going to feel?
I particularly love these last two letters, because they point out aspects that we don´t often think about. Ecological thinking reminds us that we´re not isolated individuals; on the contrary, we influence each other and our surroundings as well. Identifying any possible impact beforehand, especially if it´s negative, will allow us to reach out to whoever we need to and earn their support, so that we can make adjustments to make it easier to progress towards our goal.
And very often we get obsessed with achieving a certain goal or objective without really knowing what we want it for. The question here is not why – seguro que tenemos todo tipo de razones y justificaciones por las que tiene sentido conseguir lo que nos proponemos: volviendo a los ejemplos anteriores, sabemos que llevar una buena dieta y haer ejercicio regularmente son buenos para la salud, que es bueno tener ahorros por si surge un imprevisto, etc. etc. etc.. Ésa es la teoría, y la teoría nos la sabemos todos, pero eso no es suficiente.
The question is what for. What benefit are you going to get from this, once you´ve achieved it? What´s going to be your reward? It has to be something personal, something of value to you, something meaningful, because that´s the motivation that´s going to help you to hang in there when the initial excitement is gone and you still have a long way ahead of you. Could it be wearing that dress you like so much, the one you look so nice in, next summer? Maybe reaching your retirement age with enough agility to be able to play with your grandchildren? Or perhaps having saved enough to be able to finally go and visit the Taj Mahal?
Whatever it is, the good thing about goals and objectives is that they´re a lot more tangible than resolutions, so I encourage you, if you really want to make progress and get results this year, to use the SMARTER acronym to go wherever you decide. And if you´re not very sure how to define your own goal, or how to start working towards it, why not contacting a professional coach, who can walk alongside you?