Why Your New Year's Resolution has Failed (and what to do about it).
The start of the year is a reset point for many people.
New Years Resolutions are the most commonly associated term (at least in the United States) with promoting some sort of change. I also don’t really think it is worth explaining as to why people would choose such a day to commit to the types of changes you see in these types of propositions.
This is very interesting to me philosophically, as it appears to be the event that connects past, present and future selves the most. A year feels like a substantial period of time to most people, one complete natural cycle in the environment around them. You experienced all the seasons which happen as a result of the earth’s tilt. You have joined the billions of humans, animals, viruses, and rocks that latch on to the Earth in being in the same angle of orbit as January 1st one year ago (on the Gregorian calendar, which is mostly accurate enough to our position around the sun).
If you are getting where I am going with this, then kudos to you. If not, then I will now present the great arbitrariness of ideals and time.
I believe many are betrayed by SMART Goals.
In case you forgot, SMART Goals are goals that are:
-Specific (this specific thing needs to occur)
-Manageable (it needs to be meaningful, and ideally trackable)
-Achievable (realistic under the circumstances given)
-Relevant (it needs to be worth doing for you)
-Time-bound (because they couldn’t call it SMARTB goals)
SMART Goals are business-friendly. It is organized and tactical. It is binary (did you accomplish the goal or not?), which is an advantage mainly with activities that are necessary to thrive or die. It works just fine for these situations. This is because the difference between thriving and dying, is very stark. SMART Goals are useful to keeping your job. They try to serve as an organized way to achieve an ideal in a way that is objective and precise.
The problem with making all your goals SMART goals is that conditions make almost all of these factors of your ideal change.
Let’s say you wanted to lose weight. A good smart goal would be to “Lose 40 pounds by the end of the year." You then could make a plan to go to the gym on your way home from work, you can have the gym bag in your car, and just try really hard to lose about a pound per week. The first week probably went great, and the second week too, but then oh no. Your friend needs you to take them to the airport. You’re at a wedding for the weekend. Perhaps more realistically, you are stressed out and decide to treat yourself to some ice cream while watching your favorite movie.
SMART Goals do not allow themselves to be deviated from. This is because you are held accountable to “your” plan. Except, it isn’t really “your plan.”
How to agree with yourself
The ideas and thoughts that you have in the present are imperfect. This is evident due to the fact that we can openly criticize our past. Hindsight is 20/20, and that is largely due to information. Despite everything you can do to try to impact your future in a positive manner, (which is the point of taking the time to reflect on your previous, current, and future) the reality is that you can only experience your present self. You can try to take the actions today to become more towards your ideal self, but I am under the impression that you can never be your ideal self. This is because time is a finite resource. People would almost always rather have more time in their day than less. It is the same phenomenon as to why people would rather have more money than less.
Unfortunately, many of the pictures of what the “ideal” person looks like (especially with younger people), is that this image is perpetrated by people and cultures that are extremely regimented and harsh. Want to be a big actor? You need to spend so much time struggling before as much of an OUNCE of that comes to fruition. In that pursuit there will be many sacrifices, of things you likely enjoy. Being an expert in any field is extremely difficult.
You will realize the monotony of grinding towards a goal if you set a bar for yourself. A milestone.
How milestones can be bad for you
I can’t say that all milestones are bad. Most, in fact are relatively harmless. I’m not really referencing “I’ve been making YouTube videos for X years!” or “It’s my X0th birthday!” These are some examples that I can see as being a reward. They aren’t a sign of upcoming success, but they are a sign of continued content or special occasion". I am more concerned with tracking a goal with a milestone saying “halfway there!” or otherwise.
Milestones bring an abstract concept that serves as the “Measurable” part of your goal. Lost 10 pounds? Great! You are on your way towards your healthier self. Did you lose 20 pounds? Fantastic! That is some dedication.
I’m pretty sure that beyond the first or second milestone, most tasks made with a SMART Goal has either been abandoned (the goal was too much of a commitment, and who cares I feel happy even though I am objectively a failure (rationalized failure)), or has changed (I don’t really care about losing weight to look good as much as I care about avoiding health conditions (accepted failure)).
Why?
Because an objective measurement is a fact, and facts don’t care about your feelings.
The first ten pounds you lose could actually be quite easy. It could be done in less than two months. There would likely be a near-linear rate of weight decline. Hopes are high. Pushing through, the twenty pound mark is a bit harder. There have likely been more obstacles sent your way, weight loss is seeming to get slower as your body normalizes its new routine (though I’m not a trainer or dietician so I have no idea when this sort of plateau happens, but I know it does happen eventually).
As you lose more weight, your identity must start either changing to accommodate your new value on health, or it must reject the idea that you were happier before, and are currently miserable, so it may be best to return how things were. One option is future-bias (suffer now to make your future better), and one is past-bias (stop the suffering and return to your past state with knowledge of what happened when you tried this healthy thing.)
I would argue that many choose the latter option, especially when looking at gym membership numbers in December and January versus March or April. It also makes the most logical sense to me, as hindsight is 2020, and it will be easier to return to a comfort zone rather than push onwards and yield questionable results.
So what can I do to be better?
The bottom line is that goals need to be more like guidelines than set in stone. SMART Goals actively discourage this by requiring both a plan and hold you accountable for succeeding or failing by asking if it is “relevant”. The problem is that almost all elements of SMART goals change over time.
Specific? What happens when you desire for your goal to change?
Measurable? How much will I really need to get what I really want? What if there are slowdowns?
Achievable? What if you shot too high, or too low?
Relevant? What if you change to where your previous ideal isn’t what you want any more?
Time-bound? What if something more important pops up suddenly?
Of course, SMART goals can change, but change too much and you may be wondering what use it is making such a rigid goal in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, rigid goals have an important role in providing structure to make blurry goals more defined and possible, but I feel that this can have an adverse effect that really hinders the final result of what ultimately happens.
Blurry goals
Sometimes, things just need to be adaptable, with a caveat.
Work on your mindset. Why do you want to lose weight? There are many reasons. Sure, it is something most Americans would agree they would like. Is it for beauty? Confidence? To be able to walk to work without being sweaty?
Ive found the best way to do this is with a yearly theme. This makes you ask if you have done “enough” to match this theme for what decisions you made pertaining to the theme or not. If you did, great! If not, that is ok! Habits are very hard to change. Even decreasing the rate in which a negative aspect of your life affects your well-being is a success. Keep it in mind everyday though, so there is still a bit of structure.
My Theme
My theme this year is creativity. I have recently started a DnD campaign, which I have had a lot of fun doing. Exercising my creative muscles in something a bit more creative has lead me to wanting to improve my skills editing photos, videos, and streams. I hope to share more results of this endeavor as we near the start of this year.
And don’t worry, I don’t want this little pocket I have on the web to go to waste, so I will continue writing what’s on my mind every month! That is a creative activity, after all!
