As far as I see it, a goal is something you achieve once. When achieved, you need to get a newer goal.
While a resolution is more like an ongoing process.

For instance:
A goal : loose 10 pounds
A resolution : learn to eat healthier food

A resolution is then more of a change of habit, a change of life. And goals are useful to measure the resolution.

My New Years goal is to buy all my clothes from the thrift store. I’ve been amazed at the brand new clothing I have found at the second hand store – brand names, with the original prices still on.
I’ll be documenting the items in an album, but I have written about my goal here

http://paulsbride.blogspot.com/2009/12/thrift-store-shopping-spree-and-new.html

as for resolutions or goals… i am trying to start my own business. i havent specifically made any new goals, but i am sure they would all revolve around that. well that and my girlfriend.

After returning from spending 6 months in China, where a plastic bag is something that one has to pay for and I thus got into a habit of bringing a re-usable bag with my everywhere, I realized that I could do the same thing back in the States. I have thus far went 4 months without using a plastic bag. And now that the re-usable bag thing has become a habit that I rarely even think about, I have decided to start my next environmental goal. I am going to curtail my water use. I have timed a few showers and am going to decrease my shower time and I have put a bucket out where I will dump unfinished glasses of water and ice cubes that fall on the floor. I will then use that water to water plants.

Pay off 75% of existing Credit Card debt
Only buy things I can afford with cash
Start Graduate School
Lose remaining 20 lbs to reach goal weight

2009 Goals
Lose 20 lbs (lost 18)

More finacial goals this year

Thanks for an excellent post as always. Wish you the best with your goals.

Nice to see learning French as one of your goals. I had the same goal a few years ago and managed to do it after quite a bit of effort. Learning a language opens up a whole new world and totally worth all the effort. For French, I highly recommend the series “French in Action”. It airs on PBS. Also available as streaming video on http://www.learner.org/resources/series83.html
I learned French from this series and was actually able to talk in French in France and understand what people were saying. One of the most amazing experiences of my life. Also check out the BBC french learning site http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/index.shtml very useful for travel phrases and such.

Good luck.

Financial goals, however, naturally fall into a yearly time frame, and I did have a goal of making $10k more than I did in 2008. Thanks to a ton of overtime and an unexpected promotion, I actually made almost $40k more. In a way, my budget could be considered a set of financial goals. I went under budget in most categories, over in a few, but overall, I spent less and saved more than I had budgeted, so I guess I met my goals.

Other goals
(1) We’d like to have a baby this year, will probably need medical assistance so plan to start consulting with doctors this month.
(2) Increase fitness, I’d like to run 1/2 marathon in Sept., but see goal #1 might interfere with it. So I’ve started walking/jogging three times a week and will slowly increase it.
(3) Better organization, so I’m working on getting paperwork and closets in order, spending 1 hour a week on same until its done.

Attacking the diet is absolutely essential. If you can raise your resting metabolism first before you start exercising you should see bigger returns with your workouts. I followed the “Abs Diet” for a while and had great success.

My goal is keep paying off my credit card debt! Your blog always gives me reassurance that anyone can tackle debt and that keeping yourself happy should be a top priority because life is definitely short!

Good luck!

Happy new year!

Regarding your diet/fitness goal, I strongly recommend you check you the blog written by a guy you know, Tim Ferris:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-20-lbs-of-fat-in-30-days-without-doing-any-exercise/

I have tried many types of dieting, but Tim’s outline above is by far the most effective, simple and enjoyable I have ever tried. It is really a good resource. You can also eat well and enjoy life while being on this type of eating program.

I see someone recommended Bill Philips’ book “Body-for-Life”. I think that is a quite poor choice actually. I have that book and it is mostly a long advertisement for the supplements that his company sells.

If you want to learn about strength training (and you should if you want to lose weight!), instead I would recommend “Starting Strength” by Mark Rippetoe or my favorite: “Dinosaur Training” by Brooks Kubik.

http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur-store/dinosaur-training/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_Training

Rock on,

Kristian

We are going to do it again this year.

Chickybeth, you need to write out your plan. SMART is a good system for making goals. Then write out the steps you will need to take each month in order to achieve the goals. Ex., January research index funds. February, choose a fund and get materials to set up acct. March, open account and set auto-deposit. For some items, you might even want to set weekly goals. Ex., week of 1/1, review Vanguard options. Week of 1/8, reveiw TIAA-CREF options… and so on. Put everythign in writing and make a date with yourself to review progress regularly and recalibrate when necessary. Good luck, and get that ROTH opened!

I would love more posts or references to already-posted material on goal setting. I never seem to be able to get it right. Maybe my goal for 2010 should be to learn how to set a goal and complete it!

1. Read 18 books
2. Max my Roth IRA
3. Complete 5 graduate course (I’m starting my part-time grad school)
4. Keep my weight under 175 for entire year.
5. Take two trips outside of Mid-Atlantic region (I live in DC)
6. Run half-marathon
7. Save $800 a month (make it $10k for year)
8. Read the bible from start to the end

I think they’re all very doable. Number 1, 2, and 7 are the easiest in my mind and 8 will be the toughest!

Happy new year!

Happy new year and best of luck with your resolutions/goal.
Me too, as the previous commenter, I see my resolutions as 1 year long goals. I did not always see it that way, but until I did, my list of resolutions was merely a to do list for the first week of January (or even sometimes forgotten as soon as the alcohol left my body). But now that I actually set goals I successfully achieved some of them.
Other than that, I just wanted to say thank you for your amazing blog. I read you since quite some time but never actually took the plunge to write a comment. That’s thing done now.
As a French, I can help myself being very pleased that you plan on learning my language. I know it’s a very difficult languge but it’s an achievable goal nonetheless (I know persons who did it from scratch)so I wish you the best of luck with that.

Take care
Guillaume

I love the idea of a travel the world slowly blog. I have to live vicariously through others to see new places at this point in my life. Someday I may travel too, but that is a far off goal that I’m okay with.

Good luck with your goals this year!

2. Baring that, put in the % that will get you to hit your goals by the end of the year… then double it for the first 3 months.

3. Either of these will help meet the goal, and leave you with cash at holiday time you’ve learned to live without.

4. Trying family goals with SMART in mind this year… finding that being specific is a challenge for spouse and kids… not surprising for a 7 year old their emotions are great, drive is good, love others, help others, be nice to others… but getting specific, help in a food pantry 1x a month for 2 hours… visit 1x a month at the nursing home, etc. is the stretch… we’ll see how they like doing it, talk is cheap.

5. Weight loss vs. life balance, you’ve learned a lot… I think most Americans would love to lose weight, but what interests me the most is the finances of the healthy eaters, when I’ve read about them more, I wonder, do they manage their finances better as well… ?

Regarding “get fit slowly”, I did that and started a training that is a mix of stamina and weights (30 seconds of weights, 20 sec of dance aerobic, in a circle with 11 such combi-stations in whole, going 2-3 rounds twice a week) and managed to lose 11 kg in 9 months with that and some eye on my food and calories (but no strong dieting). More important than just the weight loss is the better fitness and flexibility and just plain overall improved shape So for this year, I decided to continue this – got quite some more weight to lose, but I’m hopeful.

Good luck!

Good luck to everyone in 2010!!!