New Year's Resolution: How to Best Achieve Them

New year, new me. Am I right? Well, that usually starts with creating some New Year's resolutions or goals that you'd like to complete in order to set off on your new transformation. But resolutions tend to have a bad rap as most people don't follow through on them and while you might read about countless ways on how to stick to them, I'm here to add to that clutter but hopefully, you can find this somewhat useful.

The Fundamentals of Goal Setting

People set goals for the same reason that Nike is Nike – they just do it. See what I did there? But goals exist because whether you're an individual or company, setting a goal can help motivate you or others, especially when it comes to completing a task. It's what I like to call: Brain Hacking 101. Everywhere you look, you'll find a goal:

• A kickstart campaign – only 11,780 left to go!
• Quarterly earning reports – let's do better than the last!
• Netflix – give me another five hours to finish Bridgerton!

How can you best achieve them? Make them difficult and specific. According to findings from Edwin Lock, an American psychologist, a pioneer in goal-setting and unofficial impersonator of the Keebler elf:

"his primary revelation was around the power of setting specific and measurable goals, rather than keeping outcomes general. With his theory, he demonstrated how targets like 'increase sales by 20%' or 'reach a customer NPS of 50' are much more effective than vague directions such as 'complete your work to a higher standard.' [He] also demonstrated that the best way to feel motivated is to push yourself to do something that you’re not 100% certain you can achieve."

With his five principles in mind, you should try to make your goals with the following:

1. Clarity. Rather than just saying, "I will eat healthier." Tell yourself something more like, "I will cook seven meals a week that include vegetables."
2. Challenge. Something tedious or unchallenging can be unmotivating so balance difficulty with reaching for the stars, like aiming for the 90th percentile.
3. Commitment. Enough said.
4. Feedback. Provide it and ask for it, from friends, families, or co-workers, it'll help you stay on track.
5. Task complexity. Break it down into smaller, chewable sizes so that you don't get overwhelmed by having to achieve something huge in a short span of time.

The Power of Gamification

You know that feeling you get when you beat your brother for the fifth time in a row at Super Smash Bros.? Well, that's because you just completed a goal!

In general, video games are designed to involve a clear goal or mission, such as rescuing a princess or hitting various candies. While video games can be very addicting, when done right, it can actually lead to better performance and skill development.

As mentioned above, they are:

Specific: If you're in solo-mode for Super Smash Bros., you know that your ultimate goal is to fight the boss at the end but first you have to go at it 1-on-1 with Captain Falcon and Link. Once you beat them, while saving your health, you achieved your first goal!

Difficult: While battling Jigglypuff seems pretty easy, going head to head with Bowser or Samus isn't quite as much. Especially if you set the difficulty setting to be extra difficult. But isn't it so much more rewarding once you defeat them?

Feedback: If you keep dying in battle, you know that you have to rethink your strategy or try something new. After all, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results, you know that you are both insane and are doing something wrong.

Two great examples of gamification in the business context are Duolingo and Nike. With Duolingo, you know that you need to try to learn German daily to keep an animated owl happy or suffer from e-mail alerts that claim you made him sad. If you use the Nike+ Run Club app, then you're probably already aware that Nike keeps users on their toes by strategically placing challenges and self-adjusting difficulties to make you reach for bigger and harder goals. After all, gamification keeps users engaged while potentially being able to run a mile (or 1.6 km) in under five minutes as well as their ability to say "Streichholzsch?chtelchen" three times fast.

Bring On the OKR's

One of Corporate America and startups' favorite acronyms, since it was popularized by Google (and who doesn't love to copy Google), are OKR's. Standing for objective key results, OKR's help companies and employees work towards a common goal.

As a general rule of thumb, OKR's must be:

• Simple and agile: Set monthly or quarterly, these allow you to make that big goal achievable by making it bite-sized.
• Clear: They are public which opens the door for transparency and better alignment within and across an organization.
• Bidirectional: They don't work top-down but rather align with all departments simultaneously for more efficiency and effectiveness.
• Collaborative: Every employee plays a critical role in achieving the OKRs and makes sure that any lone wolves stay with the pack.

Ideally, you should hit a 60-70% "sweet spot" in reaching your OKR. Anything below that means you probably set an unrealistic goal and anything above that means it wasn't ambitious enough. Thus, you make it clear, difficult, and get enough feedback while having to stay committed. Be sure to tie numbers to your goals to make them measurable. I'll let John Doerr give you more insights into OKRs with his TED Talk if you're interested.

Topping it All Off

We're only a week into the new year and there's still plenty of time to think up some new goals or rework your current ones to make sure you'll reach them. With a good plan and great support, a lot is possible. You just have to take that first step.