Yesterday I was enjoying a delicious cappuccino and a croissant. I was looking out the window and shut up in my thoughts. Mentally I was going over my Christmas break, we had great family moments that I truly enjoyed and I was thinking also about my New Year's resolutions. Between sips of coffee, I read an article that caught my attention, "72% of people will quit their New Year's resolutions just 17 days after they started"
This made me think, why?, and I wanted to share with you the steps I do to keep myself focus on my goals.
A few years ago I decided to study to get a certification in Project Management (PMP) and it was on my list of purposes for several years, but for different reasons, as the year moves on I was always quitting. The first year that resolution did not last in the list even the 17 days the article mentioned !!
I bought several books, databases of test questions, visiting websites to simulate tests and inter acting in various forums.....But I always felt the same, just overwhelming, so much content!, it looked like something unattainable, too much information.
Fortunately I got a present, a book about the Kaizen method, and that changed my way of dealing with objectives!
Kaizen (改善) concept was born in Japan and it is based on continuous improvement, it focuses on small steps in the right order, so you can be closer to your goal. The example of a drop gradually hammering a stone it is fairly representative.
Thanks to the Kaizen method, I learned that an important task is to make something every day to take you closer to the goal. Even in the worse cases just doing 5-10 minutes will be better than nothing.
So I decided to come up with a plan, and I will be studying one hour (5 days a week) and do simulation tests to obtain a minimum of 85% of correct answers in the tests simulated.
This "smart" approach has helped me to achieve the goals that I intend, SMART is an acronym(Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timeline).
I used a mix of Kaizen and SMART to work towards my goal of getting a PMP certification
• I want to get the PMP certification (S)
• I will study every day 1 hour (M)
• Study every day 1 hour is something I can do (A)
• I will get a result of 85% in the simulations (R)
• I'm going to do this five days a week (T)
I think many times we set purposes but very generic, we always have the typical purposes of "I have to lose X kilos" "I have to learn a language" etc etc ... these are good intentions, but how we are going to check if we are in the right direction? The problem is that these purposes are very generic. In my own experience SMART has helped me to stay focus by detailing what I have to do
It took me a while to be consistent and build this habit. But eventually I got this habit and everything went well.
Good luck with your New Year! and remember the joke...., how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time! Use the Kaizen method and put SMART goals and you will get what you want, humans are unstoppable when it is clear what you want!
Thanks for reading!, you can follow me @yolocalizo or contact me in my LinkedIn Profile
