Did you set a New Year’s resolution for 2025? Are you still going strong, or have you slipped and already feel like a failure? If so, you can blame the Babylonians, who are thought to be the forerunners of resolutions, and then you can begin accomplishing goals in a manner that seems too easy to be true.
According to history.com, about 4,000 years ago the Babylonians made promises to pagan gods in mid-spring when crops were planted, pledging to pay debts and return borrowed objects. The gods were thought to look favorably upon those who kept their promises and issue extreme punishment on those who did not.
Fortunately, there’s no punishment for not following through on a resolution, but the feeling of failure and harsh self-criticism are enough to discourage many people from setting another goal. Even if you’ve had more resolution failures than you can recall, there’s still something hopeful and invigorating about making positive changes to your life. You just need to do it in a way that sets you up for success, and if the goal is worth doing, there’s no reason to wait for the beginning of the year. You can make positive change happen in your life any day of the year.
If your ultimate goal is a big reach, don’t abandon it. You can accomplish it by breaking it down into more manageable, incremental changes that allow you to witness your success and build momentum. A proven goal-setting method is SMART, an acronym that stands for: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Designed by corporate management consultant George T. Doran in 1981, the SMART method can be applied to short-term and long-term goals in almost any area of life.
Here’s an example of how the SMART method is used to set a goal of waking up earlier:
Specific: I want to wake up earlier to have more time for my morning routine.
Measurable: I’ll track how many times I snooze my alarm and when I finish my morning routine.
Attainable: My schedule allows me to go to sleep early, so I can still maintain at least eight hours of sleep.
Relevant: I feel rushed trying to get to work each day. Developing better sleep hygiene would help me feel calm. (Sleep hygiene consists of habits that promote sleep such as reducing caffeine intake and consuming it early in the day; daily exercise; reading or calming your body with deep breathing before bed; reducing light and noise in your bedroom, and turning the thermostat down while you’re asleep.)
Time-bound: In four weeks, I want to wake up two hours earlier than when I usually wake up now.
The SMART approach to goal-setting takes the pressure off and gives you a fighting chance at success. You don’t have to change your life so drastically that you no longer enjoy it. The SMART method helps you build momentum with each win. This is backed by the self-efficacy theory of motivation developed in 1977 by Albert Bandura, a Canadian-American psychologist and Stanford professor. Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation. This theory is explained fully at SimplyPsychology.org, and a couple of its benefits are:
Self-efficacy can provide the foundation for motivation, well-being and personal accomplishment.
High self-efficacy has numerous benefits to daily life, such as resilience to adversity and stress, along with healthy lifestyle habits.
In a Dec. 28 episode of Mel Robbins’ podcast, neuroscientist Dr. James R. Doty advised people to stop setting New Year’s resolutions. He said they come with excessive expectations, and that’s not the way to begin a new goal and be successful. Changing behavior is about habits, explained Doty, and habits are built a little at a time. If you want to run a marathon, you don’t begin by running 26.2 miles. You begin by getting out of bed and walking around the block.
Losing 100 pounds begins by modifying your diet, which might be eliminating sugary drinks or reducing them by one or two per week. He explained that each little win strengthens your resolve to continue setting goals. That will eventually create habits, which will lead to accomplishing the big goals of running a marathon or losing 100 pounds.
Be SMART and confident that you can set goals and succeed in making changes that are best for your life. Use the SMART method and set a goal today instead of waiting until next Jan. 1 to try again. There’s no time like the present.
Holly Whisler is the associate editor of Springfield Business Journal and has accomplished goals by celebrating the little wins.
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This article appears in Healthy, wealthy and wise 2025.
