Be Smart

Hands up if you’ve made a New Year’s resolution for 2023? You are not alone. According to a YouGov survey, one in five of us have made a pact with ourselves to achieve something this year. Once again, the most popular resolutions are all health related, with doing more exercise coming in at number one for the fourth consecutive year. The pledge to save more money has also made a resurgence this year, along with home improvement plans. Anything sound familiar?

Whether you’re an official resolution person or not, most of us probably know the feeling of having something we want or need to achieve. Desire doesn’t always breed determination though and certainly not destination. So, how can we make 2023 the year we get to smash it? The answer is to be smart.

Resolution or not, the problem many of us have is that we set ourselves big sweeping targets which simply aren’t helpful. ‘I want to get fit’ is a positive aspiration, but it’s also pretty ambiguous. It’s everything all at once and that can be overwhelming. Likewise, if you’re encouraging a foster child to set goals, ‘I’m going to eat vegetables’ alone is unhelpful. It’s time we all got smart.

SMART targets get us to zero in on our goals, helping to provide direction, motivation and focus. Above all, they increase our chances of success. Boom! For you or your foster child, this year may we suggest you make your targets Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound.

Being SPECIFIC makes a goal well-defined – a much clearer target to aim at. Just ‘getting fit’ can become ‘I want to jog for 30 minutes, three times a week so I can join in my local parkrun.’

Making a target MEASURABLE helps us to check our success and stay on track. 30 minutes, three times a week is measurable. Adding that we want to do our parkrun ‘by March’ could give even more criteria to measure.

Having an ACHIEVABLE target is a must if we don’t want to get disheartened and give up. Maybe your foster child trying to eat all their vegetables just won’t be achievable if they really don’t like carrots. Lose the carrots! Aim for goals that stretch, not break you.

Following on from this, set a REALISTIC target. It may be that you could jog three times a week, but given your current workload and family commitments, twice a week would be more do-able and less stressful.

Finally, being TIME-BOUND gives a target a due-date. Deadlines help motivate and give us a lovely view of the finish line. If your foster child feels as if eating all their vegetables (minus carrots) forever might be a bit much, aiming for two weeks may seem more palatable. Better to get over the line and feel that sense of achievement, than flounder around eternally waiting.

Whatever your hopes, dreams and targets for 2023, we wish you all the best. We’d love to do this year with you, so if you want to talk about anything or fancy being part of the Footprints family, please contact us for a chat. We might even reveal our own resolutions. We believe in you, be smart.