Do you find yourself setting New Year’s resolutions in a burst of enthusiasm on 1 January only for them to fall by the wayside a few weeks later?

Do the resolutions you set have a ring of familiarity about them? (all too similar to the ones you set last year – and the year before – but didn’t achieve?).

Check out my tips below on how to set meaningful goals – and stick to them!

Goal setting – get your priorities right!

Select your goals by looking at what your priorities are and aligning your goals to these. To help prioritise, ask yourself what impact achieving the goals would have in different areas of your life (career, relationships, friends and family, health, finances, personal development, hobbies and leisure time, home).

Pick goals that inspire you, that you are motivated to achieve, and that are truly meaningful to you personally rather than what you (or others) think you should / ought to do.

Avoid feeling overwhelmed by working towards a maximum of 3 goals at any one time.

Goal planning – how to make the goals ‘real’

Start by making the goals as ‘real’ as possible by building a mental picture, putting together a vision / mood board and / or writing a description of how you will feel, look and be once you have reached your target. The more ‘real’ you can make this picture, the more it will help motivate and inspire you as you go forwards towards your goal.

Write down everything you will need to do / have in order to achieve your goal. This will include setting out what you need to do, how much time it will take, frequency (how often you will do it), and any resources you need (people, information, money, things).

Identify anything that you need to stop doing / say ‘no’ to in order to enable you to focus on your goals.

Working towards your goals – keeping yourself motivated along the way

Link up with one or more friends who are also working towards goals and form a support and accountability group that meets up regularly to discuss progress, provide support and encouragement to each other, learn lessons from setbacks and celebrate successes.

Anticipate setbacks and develop strategies to deal with them. If setbacks occur, see them as temporary and something to learn from rather than allowing them to throw you off course or lead you to give up on your goals.

Take lots of small steps rather than trying to achieve everything in one go. This will significantly increase your chances of success and of sticking to your plan.

Finally, enjoy the journey! Rather than putting the emphasis on the achievement of the goal, have fun getting there.