How are Those Resolutions Going? Maybe SaMoStat Can Help!
February 7, 2018 9:35 AM
by David Gardinier
Love them or hate them, New Year’s resolutions tend to be a little problematic when it comes to actual follow-through. Our best intentions made during the gluttony and stress of the holidays often fail to translate into real results over time, leaving us feeling guilty and disappointed.
Before you toss those promises out the window, however, consider the effect that a performance management approach could have on helping you reach your goals. The same methods the City of Santa Monica uses to drive effective performance across departments can also be used on a personal level to help you reach your full potential and thrive. Try these three steps that we like to use when setting and achieving goals through SaMoStat:
- Start with outcomes instead of goals. One of the problems with most New Year’s resolutions is that they tend to be goals that are developed without considering outcomes. In our work in the City, we always start with the outcomes we want like “Foster a safe, connected and engaged community” and work backwards to determine what activities will create those outcomes. Maybe the resolution you set was to lose weight or to be more organized, but the outcome you are really wanting is to be more at peace. Will organization or weight loss really be the best ways to attain inner peace? Maybe they will and maybe they won’t—that is for you to decide. What’s important though, is to start with the end-goal outcomes that you want to achieve in your life, and work backwards from there to guide your goal-setting process.
- Choose S.M.A.R.T. goals. Here at the City, we like to choose goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, & Time-bound (or S.M.A.R.T.). This principle can be applied in your personal goal-setting as well. Under this approach, something like “being more organized” would not count as a fully-developed goal. On the other hand, “Sort all of the clutter in the garage into three boxes per family member by February 28th” would count, because it meets the criterion of a S.M.A.R.T. goal and defines exactly what success will look like.
- Choose activities and metrics, and track your progress. As you probably know, activities are routine actions that will help you “move the needle” towards your intended goals. If your resolution is to lose 30 lbs. before that big reunion coming up, an appropriate activity might be running for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Please note that this and all other activities you choose are measurable, and it’s very easy to determine if you were successful on any given day. Tracking the number of days you completed your activity and comparing it with trends in your weight loss is essential for uncovering the proper activities to help you meet your goals. If after a while your diligent efforts are not resulting in the weight loss you wanted, that is a clear indicator that it’s time to add some different activities and metrics to the mix, such as capping your calorie intake at 2,000 per day.
It’s never too late to save your New Year’s resolutions, or even scrap the ones you have in favor of ones that will give you the outcomes that you want. These three steps work like a charm in our goal-setting work in the City, and we would love to hear how they work for you too!
Learn more about how the City is working towards performance-based outcomes.
Authored By
David Gardinier
Assistant Administrative Analyst