Guest blogger Toni Lindsay talks SMART goals to help you achieve your new year resolutions.

Happy New Year avid blog readers!

Since this is the time of the year when most of us re-think where we are at, make priorities for the year ahead etc, I thought a fitting blog topic might be around setting goals and sticking too them (I can hear the yawns from here!)

It is important to re-evaluate things at different times in our lives, and often New Years seem to signal the beginning of something new, and most people make some kind of resolution. And most people fail in the first week. Usually because they are unrealistic, like, I will never eat chocolate again, I will exercise everyday, I am going to bound out of bed singing songs from the Sound of Music everyday (I hope this one fails!). People tend to forget that life will get in the way of all of these plans. Resolutions are much more successful if you have a realistic plan about how to achieve them.

Sometimes, goals for the New Year may not be so tangible. It may be that you just want to make it through the rest of your chemo, or come up with some ways to make the horrible days in the week a bit more bearable. I have had some people say to me things like, ‘this is the year that everything will be better’. Unfortunately, for ppl in the cancer world, there is often not a clear cut way of just resolving the cancer stuff just because it’s a new year. There will always be times in your life which are difficult and hard to manage, so it makes more sense that you find ways to make them easier to cope with, rather than thinking they won’t be there at all!

So, I am sure that you have all heard about SMART Goals…

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Timeframed

Basically, the idea of this is that you work out ways in which your goals can be manageable, realistic and able to be achieved. So instead of saying ‘I’m going to be healthy this year’ its something like, ‘this year I am going to make sure that I eat vegies at least 3 nights a week” and it works for most things. So the example I gave earlier ‘I’m going to make it through chemo’ needs some more specifics in it, like how are you going to make that better for yourself? What about chemo do you need to work through, is it the nausea, the boredom of sitting in hospital etc? Basically, the more specific the goals the better. Does this goal look like….”For the next 3 cycles, I am going to listen to 4 songs while my chemo is being hooked up, as that helps me stay distracted and I feel less sick, even if I don’t feel like listening to music when I get there”?

Also, it’s better to have lots of little goals rather than one big goal, that way if one or two fall by the wayside you still have some sense of achievement. What’s that old expression, something about putting all of your eggs in one basket? It’s the same with goals, if you put all of your energy into one thing, and then it doesn’t work out, you will feel pretty deflated. And if you miss one goal once, don’t throw your hands in the air and throw the whole thing away, tomorrow is a different day!

So, come on Now Whatters! What were your goals for 2012?