It's that time of year again. Christmas has come and we are all looking to the new year. People try to figure what what their resolutions will be for the coming year. This may sound like just semantics, but I stopped making resolutions four or five years ago and started setting goals for the coming year. When I would make resolutions, I would think of things I would really like to have happen and then somehow hope that over the year they would. My resolutions were the dreams I wished would come true. Like magic. Lose weight. Read more. Spend more time exercising. Do _______. Most of the things did not actually happen when I made New Year's Resolutions.
But when I started setting goals, things actually changed. Dave Ramsey often says, "The difference between a goal and a dream is a plan." (I don't know if he took the quote from someone else, but he is the only person I could find it attributed to.) When I started making a plan for the things I wanted to change to actually change, they did. It was a little bit at a time, but they did change. Baby steps. I want an action that I have not done ever or hardly ever, like exercising, to just happen. Guess what? I don't just wake up and decide, "Ok, I will actually start to exercise." I wish I would do that, but it was not how it worked for me. Someone asked me to be in a 5K for a great cause, so I decided that I actually needed a plan to make that happen. Not only that, I decided that for ME, just for ME, I wanted to run a half marathon. I owned the goals. I wasn't just running for my friend; it was for me too. I had a specific goal in mind.
I did not want to pass out part way through either race and need medical attention, so I found a plan to train and I followed it. That's the other thing, for my goals to actually happen, I have to follow the plan. I had mini goals that I had to do each day and each week. I had to actually go running for 10 miles in the cold and rain. Even when I didn't want to, I did it. The goals each week were measurable. I had done them or I hadn't. It was that simple.
The plan I found for running was a beginning plan for running a half marathon. I didn't choose one of the plans that wanted me to run 10 miles in week 4. That would have been bad. I probably couldn't have done that. (As a side note, I did 6 miles in week 4 and that still seemed a little crazy.) I made sure that the plan to achieve my goal was attainable and realistic for me. Right now, I have two kiddos that I stay home with, so training for a marathon isn't very realistic and I wouldn't want to train for half marathons all the time, but every now and then is realistic for me in this stage in my life. And I had a time line, I couldn't just show up at the half marathon and pretend that I had prepared. It wouldn't have been pretty. There was a deadline each week that I had to meet to stay on track. November 25 was going to happen. There was a time table.
Running is just one example of goal setting and not dreaming. So, when you are thinking about goals for this next year, remember that they have to be your goals. You can't try to be healthier because someone else wants you to or to read this-or-that because your friend thinks it would be great or take up a new hobby for your family. All of those could be great reasons to think about setting a goal, but ultimately, YOU have to own it. YOU have to want it! Because when the rubber meets the road-it is going to be YOU that you have to talk into actually following through with your plan. Your goals need to be SMART-Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Think about what you want your life to look like...Dream and then make a plan to achieve that goal. What baby steps do you need to take? You can do it! Find someone to encourage you and then go make your life what you want it to be. :-) Thanks for reading! :-)
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