You’ll want to set goals for the new year, because it’s an effective way to focus your effort and make great things happen. Whether or not you think of them as New Year’s resolutions is less important than ensuring you select the best goals to set in the first place. Because your aspirations and your vision for the future can galvanize your energy and contribute to significant success.
It’s healthy and powerful to consider your future and the direction you want to go—and it’s human nature to determine how you can improve yourself and your circumstances. It’s also worth the effort: Research shows that when you focus on getting better, it makes a difference to your results as well as your self esteem, physical health and mental health. This is according to a study in Educational Research Review.
The Best Goals to Set
When you’re assessing the improvements you want to make, there are plenty of options. In fact, 23% of people want to achieve health goals, 21% want to be happier, 20% seek to lose weight, 16% pursue career goals, 11% focus on relationships, 7% want to exercise, 5% want to stop smoking and 2% want to reduce drinking, according to the University of Scranton. In addition to these, you can also consider goals related to financial health or skill development.
Goals are fundamentally about change—and making change is hard work. But failing to change is also hard. You’re unhappy in your job and that’s hard. Updating your resume, networking and interviewing are also hard—but the discomfort results in a positive outcome. Choose to do hard things that have positive payoffs.
As you’re setting goals, be sure you’re not overloading yourself. As much as you want to improve, don’t try to overhaul everything at once. Choose no more than three goals for your focus. Once you’ve achieved those, you can add more.
Given that you’re choosing a short list of goals—which matter the most? Here are the best choices:
1. Choose A Difficult Goal
One of the first rules of goal setting is to ensure your goal is challenging—because it will keep you motivated. In fact, goal setting theory finds that when your goals are both clear and challenging, they have the effect of helping you focus and give attention and effort to the goal.
It is fascinating but true, that you’re more likely to be happy when you seek to get better, rather than to get happy. Ironically, when you pursue happiness for its own sake, you’re actually less likely to feel joy—because the process focuses you on what you don’t have, rather than focusing you on gratitude for what you do have. And it focuses you on yourself, rather than others—which is also correlated with lower levels of fulfillment.
Also consider selecting a goal that is difficult enough that it demands an accumulation over time. You may want to run a marathon by the fall—and you’ll expend effort over months of training. Or you choose to learn more through reading a certain number of books—with a book list that expands through the year.
You’ll be more likely to reach your goal (or keep your New Year’s resolution) if you track your progress and get feedback—so it’s wise to set a goal that demands you build and develop to achieve it.
2. Choose a Goal That Expands Your Perspective
You should also choose a goal that helps you think differently and expands your perspective. It’s easy to get into a comfort zone because of habitual behavior—and social media tends to feed you information that agrees with what you already believe.
But there is huge benefit in learning new things and challenging yourself to think more expansively. Because learning leads to happiness. When you’re stretching your capabilities, developing your resilience and striving for the next big thing, you are more likely to feel joy.
Consider goals in which you’re learning a new skill or expanding your network. Or give thought to a goal in which you’re traveling to new places, learning a new language or researching your genealogy. Any of these would help to provide you with new views, different perspectives and a novel outlooks.
You’ll also be more likely to reach your goal when you focus on habits. Set a goal to write a book, but establish a habit to write for 30 minutes each day. Set a goal to expand your professional network, but establish a habit to invite one contact per month to have coffee. If your habits don’t change, it will be another year, rather than a new year.
3. Choose a Goal You Can Share
Another way to give a boost to your goals is to focus outside of yourself. Happiness is significantly correlated with contributing to community and making a difference for others—and the most powerful goals take this into account.
Classical definitions of leisure weren’t related to just hanging out or sitting around. The meaning of leisure was to spend time outside of your paid work to improve yourself, give back to the community and invest time in helping others. Leisure time was unpaid, but it also included expending effort.
Do things both for others and with others. Set a goal to share your talents with your community by volunteering with your local program to end children’s food insecurity or by establishing a work affinity group to adopt a charity in your town.
Approach goals in a collaborative way. Show up with your team to clean up the lakeshore in your area, or coordinate with your work colleagues to sponsor an art show spotlighting creative employees.
As you’re making choices about your goals, focus less on short-term gratification that is individual, and more on longer-term aspirations that link you with others for mutual benefit.
The Best Goals to Set
Do something today that your tomorrow self will thank you for—making choices today that will pay off in the future. Expend today’s effort for tomorrow’s great experiences.
Ultimately, the best goals to set are those which mean the most to you. Rather than being influenced by what everyone else is doing, reflect deeply on what you can commit to—and what will matter in the long term for yourself and others. These are the goals that will be the most likely to drive your success, happiness and fulfillment.