Setting New Goals in February?

Goals can make you happier: here's why and how

Baxter Blackwood

Feb 19, 2023

Hey friends,

Welcome to Day 50 of 2023!

How many of your New Year's resolutions are you still sticking with?

If most of them are down the drain, that’s ok.

The great news is that you can start all over again, today.

I always remind myself of this. It doesn’t have to be January 1st or some special day to hit reboot.

Before I teach you how I set goals, it’s worth exploring why we do it in the first place.

In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport explores the relationship between happiness and challenging things. He mentions the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, who discovered a key insight about humans…

Most people assume that relaxation and free time makes them happy.

But his studies of people doing different activities shows that we’re mistaken:

“When measured empirically, people were happier at work and less happy relaxing than they expected.”

Why?

Jobs are easier to enjoy than free time, because they have:

Built-In Goals
Feedback
Challenges

Unstructured free time doesn’t have these.

This is why it’s a good idea to set goals: we are happiest when we are striving for something challenging.

How to Set Goals

Your goals stretch you to the person you aren’t today.

As Anthony Gustin describes in his Annual Review, your goals shouldn’t be material objects. They should be habits, relationships, or lifestyles that transform you into the person you want to be.

It’s vital that your goals are “as outcome driven and time-bound as possible.”

Use SMART goals. Make sure each goal is:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-Bound

Make monthly, or daily goals, and have a system to check in. I use my calendar, journal, and an app called Notion to keep track of these things.

Let’s run through a quick example.

Step 1: what type of person do I want to be?

Let’s say you want to be healthier and get in good shape.

Step 2: what daily, weekly, or monthly goals will help me achieve this?

A large part of health is exercise and nutrition, so you could try these:

Each one fruit or vegetable with every meal.
Workout 5 times per week.
Go on a walk after every dinner.

The key to all of this is checking in with yourself. If you can’t reach your goals, then you might need to revise them and make them SMARTer.

Remember, things change and you don’t have to keep the same habits and goals you made on December 31st.

I’ve made some changes to mine, and it’s ok :)

Everyone has something to improve on, and challenging yourself will make you happier.

- BB

P.S. If you liked this, you might enjoy my transformative 2022 Annual Review.

❤️ Weekly Favorites

✍️ Quote

“Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn’t at least two of the four.” - Tim Ferriss