From all of us here at PG Paper, please allow me to wish you a very Happy New year and a successful 2020! With the start of the new year many people choose to make new year’s resolutions to spark change in their life and achieve goals.
Typical New Year’s resolutions include:
- Increase time/money dedicated to charity
- Be more environmentally-friendly
- Try out something new – zero waste, Veganuary
- Improve physical wellbeing – spend more time exercising or eating healthier
- Save more money
- Make new friends
- Start a new sport
- Travel
- Cook new dishes
New Year’s resolutions are said to have originated in Ancient Babylonia where the affirmation (or reaffirmation) of a king took place and the citizens made promises to their gods of the deeds they would accomplish that year – most commonly to pay their debts and return borrowed items. In Ancient Rome, people also made promises of good deeds to the god Janus who famously has two faces; one looking into the past and one looking to the future.
Setting New Year’s resolutions is a practice continued today worldwide, with people setting personal and professional goals for the year.
A recent study by Dominican University has shown that writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to achieve them. Why is this so? As with your daily to-do list or any important details during a meeting/call anything important is worth physically writing down and your goals are definitely important! The act of writing down goals means that they are stored externally on a piece of paper as a continuous visual reminder, as well as internally encoded within your own long-term memory. This means that during the decision-making process the goal you have set is automatically taken into consideration subconsciously helping you take action to achieve it.
Why is the practice of setting goals important?
- Goals provide focus
- They provide you with a constant “aim” and motivation
- Something to measure progress against
How to set effective goals?
- Set goals that motivate you (emphasis on why it is valuable and important to you)
- Believe in yourself – you can achieve what you have set out to do!
- SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound
- Physically write down your goal (link to Gemma’s recent blog?)
- Make an action plan breaking down into small chunks/timelines
- Stick to it- keep an eye on the bigger picture
It is often said “a goal that is not written down is nothing more than a wish” – grab your notebook, write down your goals and start achieving!
Have you written your goals? Comment below with your New Year’s Resolutions and goal setting experiences!