News year’s resolutions are a custom that many use to make self-improvement goals. This time of year brings goal-setting into mind, but goal-setting can be tricky. Knowing what goals to set and how to go about achieving them can be challenging. One of the biggest challenges is setting realistic goals that are truly meaningful. Setting a goal based on what we “should do” and the time frame we “should be able to finish” can often lead to failure.

Setting failure free-goals begins with identifying a goal that has a personal meaning and reflects what you truly want. A common goal is weight loss, but if what you truly want is to feel attractive and desired by others? In that case, good self-esteem is a better goal. If what you truly want is to be healthy, then reducing unhealthy habits is a better goal. Exploring what you truly want the goal to result in will help you set honest goals that motivate. Setting an honest and realistic goal will result in failure-free goal setting. Most goals are too broad to be realistic. For example, a lot of people set the goal of learning a second language. That’s too broad. Instead, I recommend setting the goal of mastering a specific chapter in a language-learning textbook or completing a specific textbook. Most goals need to be broken into steps to become realistic. Having a goal that is something meaningful, outcome oriented, and broken down into realistic steps means you have a goal that is achievable and realistic.