As the first month of 2023 comes to a close, Saint Patrick’s day approaches, and we all get back into the swing of things, we thought it would be a good time to talk about how to set good goals for the year in Irish dance ahead of us.
Setting good goals is kind of a difficult skill, as silly as that can sound. But it is true, and there’s a good reason there are so many jokes out there about New Year’s Resolutions lasting less than a week. They’re usually not good goals.
So how do you set good goals? What even is a good goal? Here are a few things to keep in mind that will help you make the most out of planning for 2023.
Step 1: Don’t Over-Commit.
It can be very tempting, when you’re laying out your goals for a long period like a year, to throw it all in there. Throw anything you could feasibly do in one year onto your list, fill the page, and get to work.
That is a bad idea. Firstly, huge goal lists like that can easily make you feel overwhelmed when you come back to review them. Especially because while you might be able to accomplish any of those goals in a year, accomplishing ALL of them in a year is a lot harder. The second reason is that you want to be able to keep all your major goals in mind pretty readily.
Limit how long you make your list. Pick three to five goals and really drill them into your head so that you can remember them days, weeks, or even months later without having to check your list. It will make it easier to follow them in your day-to-day life.
You might feel tempted to get around this by adding sub-goals. Don’t do that, or at least be aware that a sub-goal still counts for your total number of goals. If you are new to goal setting or don’t have a good track record of following through on your goals, try setting just one or two goals. Once you get traction you can always add another one later.
Step 2: Write Them Down!
This may seem silly, especially after all the fuss we just made about making sure you can remember your goals without checking the list again. But it’s proven that writing something out by hand makes it easier to remember, and you don’t want to be stuck trying to reconstruct your list from scratch if it does slip your mind. So it is best to write it down by hand, even if you also use some sort of note-taking app to keep it handy wherever you are. Put the hard copy somewhere you’ll remember or easily guess, and keep it in mind.
Step 3: Review Them.
This goes beyond taking out your list and checking that you haven’t forgotten anything occasionally, though you should do that too. Reviewing your list means really thinking about the goals you set down and considering where you are at in achieving them, what needs to be done to reach them, and whether they should be adjusted or not.
So it’s good to regularly sit down and ask yourself some questions about your goals. Consider things like:
‘What steps have I taken towards this goal since I last reviewed them?’
‘What do I still need to work on to make this happen?’
‘Did I set my sights too low on this one? Did I set my sights too high?’
Do this regularly, and it will help you use your goals to inform your day-to-day life a bit more. That’s the core thing you need to do to make steady progress on them. How often you want to do this review will depend on you, but doing at least a quick overview every morning can really help you keep your goals in mind throughout the day. A full in-depth review where you consider your overall strategy and whether you need to adjust your goals probably shouldn’t be done quite that often though; it should take a decent chunk of time, so it’s better to set aside an hour or two per week or even month to do that.
Step 4: Making Good Goals.
So now that you know how to manage and follow your goals, it’s time to consider what your goals should be. We don’t have much advice on how to decide what is important to you, but we can discuss a bit about how to phrase and understand your goals to make them more achievable. An excellent way to do this is to follow the philosophy of S.M.A.R.T.E.R. from Michael Hyatt at Full Focus. A good goal is:
Specific. You want to narrow your goal down enough to identify exactly what you want to accomplish. This isn’t a situation for grand, vague ideas.
Measurable. Being able to put numbers to your progress is vital to knowing that you’ve made progress. Don’t just say that you want to practice more or spend more time studying- figure out what more is and put a concrete number to it.
Actionable. Start your goal with an active verb, not something passive like do or be. Instead of saying you want to be tidier, say you want to clean out your bag once a week.
Risky. Don’t set yourself a goal that you know you can do in an afternoon. It won’t feel like much of an accomplishment if you do it, and knowing it’s easy might make you blow it off. Stretch your limits, and you’ll do more than you expected you could.
Time-keyed. Deadlines can be scary… but they also do wonders for forcing us to work. Add a ‘due by’ date to your goal and hold yourself accountable for it. Even if it’s something repetitive like drinking enough water every day, you want a deadline to say that you’ve made that a habit.
Exciting. There’s nothing better for motivation to make a change than being excited about the end result. Pick goals that will make your life better and happier. If your goal is just something you set because it’s popular with your friends or sounds like a good goal to have, but deep down it isn’t really important to you, the chances of you reaching it are slim.
Relevant. It seems strange to say that it’s important to be sure your goal is a good idea, but it really does make a huge difference. Not only are you making sure your goal is something feasible and positive, but you’re getting a better understanding of how your goal will make things better for you and why you want to do it. And you can make sure that none of your goals conflict with each other.
Let’s look at an example of a bad but common goal and see what a S.M.A.R.T.E.R. version of it looks like:
‘I want to be more active.’
Everyone has made this their New Year’s Resolution at least once, and everyone has probably dropped it within a month as well. But by applying S.M.A.R.T.E.R. to it, we can create a much better, more workable goal:
First, let’s make it more Specific. Instead of saying you want to generally be more active, let’s say:
‘I want to do more running.’
That’s a little better, but we can also make it Measurable and Actionable in one swoop:
‘I want to run a 10k.’
Is that a Risky goal? Well, that will depend on where you start. It could be that a 10k run is close enough for you to reach in a month, which means you should shoot higher. It could also be that 10k is too much for you to achieve in a year, which means you should dial it back. We’ll stick with it as a round number here and look at whether the goal is Time-keyed instead. It’s really not, so let’s add:
‘I want to run a 10k by August.’
That’s seven months, and suddenly you have the beginning and end of a schedule to work on. That’s great! But is it Exciting?
Consider for a moment the benefits of running a 10k. Most of them are in being healthy enough to accomplish that, but if you have a friend who runs as well or there’s a specific race in a location you’ve always wanted an excuse to visit those are also good reasons to be excited about it.
For the final question, is the goal Relevant? Ultimately, only you can answer this question. Something like running a 10k is usually at least kind of relevant as long as you truly want to do it, because getting outdoors and active is a good thing and it doesn’t conflict with many other goals. But if running isn’t the right activity for you, you could satisfy the goal of wanting to be more active by making a habit of doing pushups, situps, and other non-equipment indoor exercises in your home. A goal of ‘I want to be doing one hundred pushups, situps, and leg lifts a day by August’, is following S.M.A.R.T.E.R. principles just as well.
Step 5: Share Your Goals!
Now that you’ve got your goals, what’s next? Well, it can be very helpful to have someone else who knows about your goals and can ask about how they’re coming along occasionally. You don’t necessarily need to shout your goals from the mountaintops or scream them into the void of Facebook for this if you don’t want to, but talking about them with someone you know can work wonders for keeping you invested and engaged. Having an “accountability partner” is extremely helpful.
Do you have a friend, relative, or fellow dancer who you could share goals with and encourage one another to do the work necessary to reach them? They don’t have to have the same goals as you do, but knowing you have to check in with someone on a regular schedule can be the little push you need when you feel like slacking off.
Keep an eye out on our Facebook page in the coming days for more on setting goals and sticking to them. We’ll be doing a series of infographics covering parts of this article and a monthly check-in to remind everyone to evaluate what they’ve accomplished and what they want to achieve.