20. Set a social mini-goal
Whether you love New Year's resolutions, hate them, or feel bad about letting yours fall by the wayside already, this post is for you.
Data point of the week
In case you're curious about other people's resolutions, a recent survey by Forbes Health identified the most common resolutions for 2024.
Improved fitness (48%)
Improved finances (38%)
Improved mental health (36%)
Lose weight (34%)
Improved diet (32%)
Make more time for loved ones (25%)
Quit smoking (12%)
Making resolutions is one this, but only “20% of respondents say they keep themselves accountable when it comes to sticking to their goals” and only 6% stick to their resolution a year later.
Reflection
It's a little sad (though not surprising) that “making time for loved ones” is number six on the list, even though there’s compelling evidence that feeling connected has more impact on health and longevity than being fit or losing weight. This can be hard for people to believe because it runs counter to what we’ve been told our whole lives.
This resolutions list is also out of alignment with what people see as important when they reflect back on their lives. One of the top five regrets of the dying was, “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends,” whereas, “I wish I had lost weight, eaten better, and gotten fit” were not deathbed regrets! It’s not that fitness and eating well aren’t important … they are, but why don’t we think to make more goals related to relationships?
Regardless of what you choose as your own priorities, one of the reasons people are notoriously bad at following through on their goals is because they get overly ambitious and set the bar too high.
Habits expert James Clear writes:
"New goals don't deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.”
Yes, and... it can be helpful to hold the desired result in mind to inspire and motivate. Without a some kind of vision of reward, I wouldn’t bother focusing on the process of developing better habits.
One of my favorite ways to turn an ambitious goal into a more realistic and sustainable process is to set mini-goals.
Connection Skill & Action Step: Set a mini-goal
A mini-goal is a SMALL action step that you can accomplish in 1-15 minutes. If your larger intention is to improve the quality of your connections, your mini-goal could be a small action that you practice on a regular basis, that is cumulative over time, and eventually leads to big impact. For example:
Each day, tell someone what you appreciate about them.
Practice warm welcomes. Whenever you say hello to a friend or a family member, let them know you're excited to see them.
Each week, initiate getting together with someone (text a friend to go for a walk, etc.).
You can break a larger goal, like “make friends” into smaller mini-goals or steps, such as:
Spend 10 minutes looking at local Meet-Ups to see what you might be interested in joining.
Follow up with the person you met at the open house/party/reception last week and had a great conversation with.
Request a connection-building workshop for your campus or workplace.
Questions to reflect on or to spark conversation. Please share your responses in the comments—we love hearing from you!
What’s a connection mini-goal you have?
What difference would it make to if you stuck with this mini-goal?
Keep putting in the effort and you’ll get there!