Make sure plans are "measurable"

Towards the year end, we always look forward to a new calendar year. We can't wait to close the old chapters together with all the unsettled issues. We want to start afresh. ( A kind of escapism!)

A new long list, nicely written with all the new year resolutions, is again pinned in front of the study desk. We promise ourselves to do better this time. We assure ourselves the last chapter would contain no more unsettled issues this year end.

But more often than not, this list would be taken down/or simply forgotten before we even reach middle of the year. Again and again, no matter how we have promised ourselves, the new year resolutions never seem to work, right? But why?

If we examine carefully, the problem lies not with the resolutions we've made. The agenda is perfectly fine. The problem is we have a to-do list which is too general. Take for example: "to improve my English" without specific plans and time frame stated. There's no way to check if we are doing it. We can conveniently push it from one day to another when we are busy/lazy and we end up not doing it at all.

We fail because of the absence of "checking mechanism" to "monitor" and "measure" our progress.

That's why it's important to be very specific in making new year resolutions. It's better to put down "to read an article a day" and " to write an essay a week" instead of " to improve my English". The progress is made "measurable" now and you are forced to be more discipline with no excuses.

Whatever we intend to do, there is always a way to "measure the effort". A plan like " love my family more " may look abstract, yet you can have a checklist to include " call them once a week" or " spend a weekend with them" to evaluate our effort in bringing closer the relationships.

In short, to challenge ourselves, we must always have plans whereby our progress could be evaluated and reviewed specifically. If we make great plans which are not benchmarked against measurable goals, we would fail to achieve for sure.