It’s that time of the year again.

With the start of the new year, the air is thick with collective hope for new opportunities, a desire for a fresh start and of course, an unhealthy dose of unrealistic expectations to ruin it all.

I wrote a post last year about why I’ve never set New Years Resolutions and thought it timely to reiterate and reconsider my thoughts.

The basic premise is that a) when most people think of “resolutions” they think of dreams, not goals.

Now this inherently isn’t a big problem, it’s great to dream!

However, it does get dangerous if you are unfamiliar with what makes a goal vs what makes a dream.

This is a worthwhile distinction to familiarize yourself with because your understanding of the two will often impact whether the outcome is success or failure.

So here are some basics for good goal setting.

Defined – Make it tangible and specific. A goal like “get better at communicating” is a vague goal. Compare that with, bi-weekly practice communicating my feelings to others in the Nonviolent communication format.

Timely – What is your timely and most importantly, deadline. A goal is not a gaol without a deadline, otherwise it’s a dream.

(optional) Gradual – It’s very easy to go from not working out at all to setting a goal of working out every day, that’s unrealistic.

If your resolution doesn’t have these three factors it’s unlikely to be a goal but rather a dream. Understanding the distinction between goals and dreams is an excellent start to making a tangible positive change in your life.