I’m not too proud to admit it: I’ve failed over and over and over. I’ve created the “ultimate” New Year’s resolutions, only to fall flat on my face not even 2 months into the year. In years past, my resolutions have yielded a veritable poo-poo platter of failure. Some of the best include:

• “This year, I will pay off all of my debt!”
• “I will run, go to the gym, stretch, and lift weights daily”
• “I will create the ultimate organization system!”
• “I will work full-time, go to school full-time, and work side gigs, see my friends, talk to my family, AND maintain my sanity”
• “I will save more/build my e-Fund” 

Where did I go wrong with these resolutions?  They are all great ideas and goals that I want to be working towards. They’re all applicable to my life in many ways. Furthermore, they’re all things that my inner rock-star/perfectionist aims to accomplish in any given year.

It turns out that the key to understanding my past failures (and perhaps your own) lies not in the act of reaching goals, but in the act of setting them. Anyone can get fired up about the latest & greatest idea, craze, or mass movement. Something that not everyone can do is to set goals in a way that you guarantee yourself some measure of success (and notice that I’ve replaced ‘resolution’ with ‘goal.’ You’d be amazed what a simple change of a word can do to bolster your motivation!).

With this in mind, when it came time to set my current goals, 12 in 2012, I followed the SMART goals formula:  I created goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. I also made sure to have a mix of financial, personal, and health-oriented goals. In my world, variety surely is the spice of life–it keeps me motivated, excited, and positive–so it was very important that I vary my goals.

Looking back at those ill-fated goals of New Year’s past, I can now see why each goal was destined for failure from the very start:

• “This year, I will pay off all of my debt!”–not Attainable, considering that “all” of my debt included credit card and student loan balances that far exceeded my annual income at the time

• “I will run, go to the gym, stretch, and lift weights daily”–not Timely; how on Earth could anyone fit all of this in on a daily basis?!

• “I will create the ultimate organization system!”–not Specific; what exactly am I organizing? My home? My schedule? My closet? 

• “I will work full-time, go to school full-time, and work side gigs, see my friends, talk to my family, AND maintain my sanity”–definitely not Realistic; duh! 

• “I will save more/build my e-Fund”–not Measurable; how much would I be saving? Build my e-fund to what? How will I save?

So in the spirit of the celebrations we share to ring in the New Year, I raise my glass to you, SMART goals. May 2012 be filled more with success than trials & tribulations; may it help me remember that on some days, the only thing you can really do is grin & bear it; and may it be a testament to the benefits of my new-found goal setting approach.