Commentary: Achieve resolutions with goals - not objectives

If you are like most folks, by now you have completely given up on pursuing your New Year's resolutions.

According to a recent study, the vast majority of people who make resolutions only stick with them for a period of three weeks.

I believe the major reason for this large failure rate is because people tend to state their resolutions in terms of objectives instead of goals. I strongly feel there is a tremendous difference between the two.

Objectives can't be visualized while goals can.

For example, if I ask how high a stack of $50 bills would be if they totaled $150,000, I'd doubt you would know the answer. Reason is you can't visualize it.

On the other hand, you can visualize what $150,000 can buy for you, and that image is a goal.

Objectives are really rational measurements and they give you indications as to whether you are on track to achieve your goals in a timely manner. Whereas, when goals are stated emotionally they create internal or self-motivation which allows for behavior modification.

Ultimately, it is this motivation from within that determines whether or not one will be successful in achieving their New Year's resolutions. Self-motivation is to human beings what fuel is to a car. It gets us where we want to go.

Soooooo?

By now you are probably wondering what in the world do New Year's resolutions and motivation have to do with investing?

Well, according to the same study mentioned above, the second most popular resolution made by people each year is to save money or reduce debt.

Therefore, the purpose of today's article is to try to help those that want to save more money, and therefore accomplish their New Year's resolutions.

Resolutions need to be defined in terms of goals and the most important element of a goal is that it can be stated with emotion in specific and concrete terms.

You have to make the emotional goal as tangible as possible. You have to paint a mental picture, and it is this visualization that gives rise to the desired self-motivation. The more crystal clear your goal, the more motivation you will likely develop.

For example, let's suppose for the moment that your resolution is to save more money so that you can treat yourself to extended vacations during your retirement years.

Now let's also suppose that you have decided you will need an extra $150,000 at retirement to accomplish this dream. So the $150,000 becomes your objective and consequently it is measurable.

Depending on how many years you have left until retirement, you will want to break this $150,000 down into yearly objectives and eventually to monthly amounts. These amounts will not only depend on the number of years to retirement, but also on your expected rate of return on your savings.

Once the $150,000 has been reduced to a monthly amount you will be able to measure your progress as time goes on.

Keep in mind the key to accomplishing any goal is not in its objectives, but in the visualization of the goal. Again that is where the self motivation is created which helps you overcome the many obstacles you will be confronted with along the way to achieving your successful goal of accumulating that extra $150,000 by retirement.

Describing the goal

The better you are able to describe your goal, the more motivation you will generate from within. Continuing with our illustration let's say the $150,000 you want to save will be adequate to afford your extended vacations of four to six weeks every winter during your retirement years.

The key to good goal setting is to now visualize how those extended stays will make you feel emotionally.

It is this feeling of emotion that you need to state in specific and concrete terms. For example, if you don't like cold weather and you live in the north you might start your visualization by imagining yourself missing those long, dark, inactive, harsh winters.

Picture yourself not having to shovel your 100-foot driveway in 18- degree weather with a wind chill factor of minus 5 degrees, or escaping the impromptu winter storms that make driving a car hazardous at best.

Perhaps you want to escape those 24-inch snowstorms that confine you to your home for days on end. These are examples of visualizations that give rise to negative rewards.

In other words if you don't accomplish your goal you will be penalized. These negative rewards generate the motivation that gives us the drive to avoid the unpleasant.

Positive rewards

The best motivation though is derived from positive rewards, and this is where you need to concentrate the most when developing your goal. Positive rewards gives you something to look forward to receiving rather than avoiding in the future.

Now resuming with our illustration let's assume you want to spend your extended stays in Aruba, which is located at the southern tip of the Caribbean, just 16 miles north of Venezuela.

Just imagine yourself lying on the white fine-grained sands of the Aruban beach looking out into the calm and sparkling blue-green waters of the Caribbean Sea. As you peer up through the 40-foot tall lush green palms that sway in the gentle breeze you notice there's not one cloud in the baby-blue sky.

Compare taking your daily aerobic walk at the water's edge while observing all the beach activity with your boring and repetitive treadmill exerciser that you seldom ever use in your musty basement back home.

Realize that the tiny island of Aruba lies just outside the hurricane zone and it seldom rains there. Feel the constant trade winds that make Aruba's 85-degree plus temperature feel more like a refreshing 75 degrees.

Recall that everyday in Aruba is like a day in paradise, and I guess that's why their license plates read One Happy Island.

Hopefully by now, you are getting the idea of how to set a goal. The emotional mental pictures are designed to get you over the hump when you find yourself wanting to abandon your resolutions.

Oh no, an obstacle

When met with an obstacle, these images will give you the will power you need to continue achieving your resolutions. The more descriptive your goals the more motivation you will produce to conquer your obstacles.

What is an obstacle? Take for example buying a new car. Maybe you are trying to decide between two cars. One is priced at $18,000 and meets your demands, and the other is $25,000 with a lot of bells and whistles.

The car that costs $7,000 more is your obstacle. Do I spend the extra $7,000 or save it for my retirement vacations?

If you have correctly created that mental image of the prolonged Aruban vacations in your mind, the $18,000 car will do just fine and your obstacle will have been overcome by the motivation derived from your well thought-out goal.

Once you learn how to express your resolutions in terms of goals instead of objectives you will be well on your way to achieving behavior modification which will give rise to a better life for yourself.

If you state your goals as emotionally and graphically as possible you should not have too much difficulty in attaining and maintaining your resolutions.

Once you understand this theory of goal setting you can apply it to virtually any resolutions you make about your life in general.

For those of you that gave up on your New Year's resolutions, it's not too late to try again. Only this time define your resolutions in terms of goals and not objectives and gear up for success.

David R. Clogg, ChFC is an account executive at Chapin, Davis. He can be reached at 410-435-3200 or visit his Web site at www.theeducatedinvestor.info.

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