Make your goals happen

as New Year's resolutions. There is something about the fresh start energy of a new year that makes people think they can do new and exciting things. However, I know there is also a reasonable amount of cynicism about New Year's resolutions. I read a statistics somewhere that one percent of them fail. Now I don't know if that is true or not, probably because sometimes these goals are so vague that I am not sure you'd even know if someone had succeeded. What does it mean to get in

shape or to eat more helpfully? What would it mean to be in control of your finances or to stop procrastinating, or any of the other resolutions like that. In any case, I know a fair number of people set out to do things and then feel like they haven't succeeded at doing what they set out to do. This can be frustrating, and in a worst case scenario, can lead to a feeling like life is what it is and it is

not even worth trying to change things. But I think goals can be incredibly motivating, and I also think it is often possible to shape life in a schedule to make goals happen. To do that. Ye that, though, we need to be careful about how we set our goals, both in how we choose these goals and in how we structure these goals in order to make success possible. This episode is going to be about ways to think through these issues so that your goals stand a good

chance of actually happening. So the first thing to think about is whether your goal is something that you actually want to do. Now, perhaps this sounds like a silly question, because if you are considering something as a goal, then clearly you do want to do it, right, But I don't think this is necessarily true. People set goals for all sorts of reasons. Maybe they sound good at least in theory. Maybe other people are telling you that it should be a goal for you. Maybe it is in

the abstract, something that you would like to do. I mean, maybe eventually, but it is not as big a priority as other things in your life, perhaps right now. So here is a way to figure out if you are motivated to do something or not, particularly something which might involve a habit or putting something regularly into your life, or changing your daily schedule in some way. Ask yourself this, would I do this on vacation? That is, would I continue this habit or would I still be pursuing this

goal while on vacation. If you are planning to eat more healthfily this year, would you eat more healthfuly on vacation. If you are planning to exercise more often, would you be willing to exercise on vacation. If you are planning to drink less, would you drink less on vacation than you normally would? I am not saying you would follow the exact same schedule and protocol because hey, vacation, But the key is whether you would eagerly ditch the protocol

because you were on vacation or not. This framing came to me several years ago when I was on a cruise and was attending the orientation, the cruise director told us about all the fun things we could do on the ship and during our shore excursions, and then he grinned from ear to ear and let us all know that all diets are officially kicked to the curb. He then mimed kicking something off the stage. The crowd went wild.

I found this all fascinating. I am sure that at least some people on that cruise had set some sort of goal to eat more healthfully during the year, and then decided that being on a cruise was a guilt free reason to not follow those eating patterns that they had set for themselves. But why what is it about being on a giant boat that would change anything about

a goal you might have. I imagine the truth is that people didn't particularly want to eat more healthfully, at least among competing priorities, and so when there was a socially acceptable reason not to, people were happy to take the excuse. But for a long term habit to stick, you will need to call upon your problem solving abilities to figure out ways to stick with the habit. When life is different from the norm for some reason, you can't be calling upon your problem solving abilities to get

out of doing it. So that is why I like this vacation question. If you would still more or less do something while on vacation, then you do in fact want to do it. For example, I still track my time on vacation because I find it useful to track my time. When I had my running streak going several years ago, I would run on vacation. For instance, I ran laps around that cruise ship deck and in the cruise gym. But not because I am some sort of paragon of virtue, trust me, I am not, but because

I wanted to run. I really like running. I also like eating dessert, so I would not set a goal that involved not eating dessert. I always want a little bit to be okay. I think anyone ditching a diet on that cruise ship might have been better served by an eating goal that involved moderation in all things. So you could enjoy a cocktail on occasion or a treat on occasion, but generally eat produce and lean protein for

most of your calories. Asking would I do this on vacation leads to the next question, which is figuring out how to structure a goal to fit in with your regular life and life when it is not so regular. I am not having to say, you know, you do something all the time, you do it every single day, but you might want to figure out how it will fit into what your day to day existence tends to look like. And guess what, you are busy. You do

not have five hours a day to devote to optional things. Right, So we're going to take a quick ad break and then we'll be back talking about more ways to set goals and stick with them. Well, i am back. This is a longer episode, but I'm not interviewing anyone this week. I am talking about ways to set goals for the

new year that increases the chances that they will happen. First, we talked about setting goals that you truly wanted to do, and one way to get at this is to ask yourself, would you do at least some version of this goal while on vacation? Would you stick with this habit at least to some degree on vacation. That is a good way to gauge motivation. Now we're talking about building a goal into daily life. I know people listening to this show are incredibly busy. We do not have hours a

day to devote to optional things. Goals need to fit into life as it is, so in general, one of the best ways to make goals happen is to figure out how you can break your big goals into as small of steps as possible, and then you can figure out where these small steps can fit into most days. I like to think about small steps. Because the cruise director on that cruise I was talking about didn't tell us that all toothbrushing habits were officially kicked to the curb.

He didn't tell us that oral hygiene no longer applied on this ship. I think people would have found that rather odd if he had kicked a toothbrush off the stage. So I was sitting there pondering why are people willing to stick with one healthy habit, that is brushing their teeth on vacation, but not others, like the diets. I think it is because toothbrushing is easy, reasonably pleasant, doesn't take much time, and we generally plan for aberrations in

our routines. People take their toothbrushes with them on vacation. Indeed, if you want evidence that a lot of goals and habits are less about discipline than they are about structure and incentives. Consider that many people who don't think of themselves as good at habits might have a multi decade streak going of brushing their teeth daily. No one points to daily teeth brushing as evidence of their ironclad discipline.

Nor do people try to weasel out of toothbrushing by claiming it is their birthday or are there on vacation, or they did it yesterday, yesterday was a really tough day, and name your excuse. People still brush their teeth. So if you have big goals, it might help to think about how you could make individual steps toward these big goals feel relatively easy, much like brushing your teeth. This is one reason that I am drawn to big, year

long projects. When I set my goals, even very big things spread out over three hundred and sixty five days tend to become relatively little things. Back in twenty twenty two, I managed to read through all the works of Shakespeare by reading three pages in my anthology each day for an entire year. Reading all of Shakespeare's sounds like a

huge project, and on some level it is. But his complete works fit into a one thousand page anthology, and if there are three hundred and sixty five days a year. That's just about three pages a day. The math works as long as you just keep going. I did the same in twenty twenty five with listening to all the works of Beethoven. That is something I set as a goal for the year. Now, this was about thirty minutes of listening a day when I followed a particular calendar.

Some days it was a little more, some days it was a little less. But I know from my time logs that I spend at least thirty minutes driving around each day in my car, So listening to Beethoven just meant listening to something a bit more elevated than I usually would. It all fit pretty easily, no major discipline required. Breaking big goals down into small steps can even make things that have I've eluded us before finally happen. So

I have made several bucket lists over the years. Longtime listeners have heard me talk about my lists of one hundred dreams, and over the years I'd often put something like write a collection of seasonal sonnets on the list. So sonnets are generally fourteen line poems with a certain rhyming scheme. So I put this on the list, and then I wouldn't do it. But a few years ago I decided to set a goal to write just two lines in a sonnet every day. Two lines is truly

not that much. Now, these sonnets are in iambic pentameter, so two lines meant twenty syllables a day, very very easy. But it turns out that two lines a day add up two lines a day is one fourteen line poem a week. There are fifty two weeks in a year, so I have now written about one hundred and fifty six of these poems over the last three years. It feels easy, unpleasant and rewarding enough that I plan to

just keep going. We're going to take one more quick ad break, and then we'll be talking about how to make our goals happen. Well, we are back talking about how to set goals so we can actually accomplish them. Of course, all goals do not need to happen daily. Sometimes there might be reasons that you wouldn't want to have a goal structured as a daily habit, perhaps with things like lifting heavy weights or running for people who aren't going for streaks. In general, you do need some

recovery time for habits like those. But in those cases, I think it helps to figure out what success would look like for you in terms of frequency, allowing for the reality of life, and then to figure out where exactly these things could fit into the schedule. So let's say you want to exercise more. That is a common goal people might set as a New Year's resolution. It is also hard to know hearing that what success would mean for any individual person, so let's aim to make

it a little more specific. For example, I intend to exercise for thirty minutes three times a week, unless I am physically incapable of doing so. In general, I believe that three times a week is a habit, so that is probably a good number to shoot for. So let's say the answer is three times a week. Then you would need to look at your calendar for the next few weeks and go ahead and block these sessions in. Where can three exercise sessions go next week? How about

the week after that? This is where you figure out if this is a reasonable goal for you or not. If you can't block in three sessions during the first week of January, it is not like other weeks will magically be better. So if you can't find three spots, you'll need to refine your goal or figure out ways to change your schedule. Maybe that can't happen immediately, but

over ninety days maybe. But the truth is, I'd actually aim to block more than three sessions in if that is your goal, in order to make sure that the three sessions happen. Because here's the thing, life for sure will happen. Stuff will come up. If you make space for three sessions, there is a good chance one will be taken away from you when there is a work crisis or a kid gets it's the flu. If you set a goal of three and only make one or two, you might feel like a failure. It seems not to

be happening regularly. But if you carve out space for four sessions and miss one, you have still hit your goal. If you carve out space for four and miss two, you'll still feel quite a bit closer than if you missed two out of three. Now, I know it is hard to carve out a backup slot in addition to carving out time for our priorities, but hey, this episode is about how to make goals happen. It's not always easy.

There is a reason that we believe most people fail at their New Year's resolutions, and I think not planning for life to go wrong on occasion is a big part of that reason. Finally, setting goals that actually happen means being constantly reminded of your goals. How will you remember your goals? How will you make sure you don't forget until New Year's next year? As you are planning your life, How will you make sure time for your goals winds up in your schedule. Longtime listeners know that

I advocate creating a regular weekly planning time. Each week, you sit down and around the same time and look forward to the next week. What is most important to do in the spheres of career, relationships and self. What do you need to do? What logistics do you need to sort out for all of this to take place? During this time, you can look at your goals list and think about what steps can happen and where during the week these should go. So look at the list frequently.

You might also be helped by figuring out some form of accountability. Sometimes we drift away from goals because they no longer make sense in our lives. But if you do want to stick with your goals rather than drift away from them. Then it helps to find ways to boost motivation when it might flag. So can you enlist an accountability partner? An accountability partnership doesn't have to be elaborate. All you have to do is check in by email or by text once a week or so to see

how things are going. If you don't want to keep sending texts about why you just couldn't find three times a week to work out, or last week you didn't need to do it either, or maybe even the week before that you don't really want to send that text, well, maybe you will work on your schedule in order to make it happen. The good news is that if if you do think about all these things, you will have a good chance of making your goals stick. You'll choose

goals that you really want to do. You will think about how to make the individual steps of your goals easy. You will think about how they can regularly fit into your life. You will think about how they will fit into your life when life is complicated, and how you will create a backup slot so success is more likely even when things go wrong. You'll think about how you will be reminded of your goals and how you might

keep yourself motivated through the year. Is that a lot maybe, but it is also likely the difference between success and feeling frustrated with the whole process. I want everyone to feel next December like they've been able to do what they set out to do. Success is truly possible when we achieve our goals and then we really do take life from great to awesome. I would love to hear about your New year's resolutions. Feel free to share them with me. You can always reach me at Laura at

Laura vandercam dot com. What are you doing to make success more likely in the meantime? This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.