New Year’s Resolutions That Last

When I was at college, we had a term during which we were supposed to learn about SMART goals and planning for the future. At the time, the general consensus among us students was that it was a waste of our time. It didn’t count towards our marks and as we had exams approaching, we wanted to focus on studying for them instead. Eventually the college agreed and let us drop it to prioritise our exam preparation, but as I’ve been thinking about New Year’s resolutions recently the idea of SMART goals has come back to me.

New Year’s resolutions are fun to make at the beginning of the year, but they’ve also become a bit of a joke. Very few people seem to stick by them through the whole year. Perseverance, complacency, and self-discipline are part of the problem. Yet perhaps another part is that we’re not making the right resolutions? As I think back on my New Year’s resolution for the past year, I find that I don’t know if I’ve achieved it or not. In hindsight, it was a very vague wish. It’s difficult to tell how I would even measure success or failure. I’ve made progress and learnt many things in the past year; yet was that proactive growth or simply the passage of time?

Life is short. We only have so much time on earth and we have a responsibility to make the most of the opportunity we’ve been given. God willing, I’ve been gifted another year, so I want to use it for His glory. What that will look like, I don’t know yet, but being intentional in setting positive New Year’s resolutions is the best way to start the year off on a good foot. This year I’m going to make my New Year’s resolutions SMART goals so that I have a clear path in sight to some more tangible progress by the end of the year.

Specific

SMART goals is an acronym and the first letter stands for Specific. This means making it clear exactly what you’re setting out to accomplish. Rather than having some vague, woolly idea, narrow it down to a specific goal you can focus on. The journey is more important than your destination and you should try to enjoy each step throughout the next year, yet make sure that you do have a final destination in sight. Be clear what a definite marker of success would look like at the end of the year.

Measurable

The M in SMART stands for Measurable. This means that you’re able to track your progress throughout the year and measure how far you’ve come. Break your New Year’s resolution down into smaller and more manageable steps that you can actively complete. Successfully completing one of these steps will let you see the progress you’ve made and act as motivation. Having a plan will help you check in and make sure you’re still on track with your yearly goal.

Achievable

A key part of SMART goals is that they must be Achievable. Don’t pick something that would be impossible for you to achieve within the next year. The whole point of New Year’s resolutions is that they should be realistic yet challenging. Don’t overload yourself. Only make a manageable number of New Year’s resolutions – I would advise not more than three. Goals should help you get where you want to be and enjoy the journey, not make everything perfect overnight. Know how much you can handle. There’s no pressure to be perfect.

Relevant

The driving force of SMART goals is that they must be Relevant. Choose a New Year’s resolution that you find personally relevant and that is meaningful to your true self. Don’t just choose a certain goal because society says you should. If you do you’re more likely to lose interest and not keep the resolution. Be clear on your motive. Know why you want to achieve it and why you’re willing to work for it. Having a New Year’s resolution that’s positive and has strong personal relevance will help you maintain it throughout the year. Write down what your resolution is and why it matters to you, so that it will feel more permanent. Share your goals with a friend or family member. They can help keep you accountable, offer encouragement, and remind you why you chose that resolution.

Time-Bound

Finally, the T in the SMART goals acronym stands for Time-bound. The good thing about New Year’s resolutions is that they automatically have this because they’re built around a time limit of one year. However, it’s also important to think about reviewing your progress throughout the year and considering what steps you’ll need to have taken by what month in order to stay on target for achieving your goal.

I hope that you’ll find these tips helpful in setting your New Year’s resolutions. Ultimately, however, the key to resolutions is the resolve. You’ll need willpower to stick to it and sometimes you’ll just have to make the decision to do so simply because you committed to that goal. You won’t always feel as motivated as you do now at the beginning of the year, but if your New Year’s resolution is worth making then it’s worth keeping. By feeding good habits it will become easier. I’ve linked a video below that talks about the power of habits and it gives what I think is a very helpful, motivating allegory. I’d recommend that you watch it.

Happy New Year and best of luck for your New Year’s resolutions! You can do this!

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How To Develop Valuable Friendships

We all long for friends, and not just for friends but for deep meaningful connections that make us feel seen. It’s part of being human and something that we all desperately need. Chances are, if you’re reading this blog article you want to improve your social life and find those valuable friendships. It’s perfectly within your reach, but don’t be deluded by the Instagram ‘friendship goals’ aesthetics. Nobody just becomes instant BFFs – it takes time and commitment to develop a friendship. But what are the stages in that process? I find structured frameworks helpful, so I thought I would share the friendship stages that I’ve identified. Being able to assess a relationship can help you to know how to grow it to the next level. As a general guide, women and girls tend to bond primarily by talking together, whereas men and boys tend to bond primarily by doing things together. Friendships need an approximate ratio of five positive experiences for every more demanding experience, so make sure you’re giving as well as taking.

1 Stranger

Strangers form most of the population. They are all the people you don’t know and many of us run across them on a daily basis. You may know the names of some strangers, for example celebrities or politicians, but there is no reciprocal relationship. Most strangers will stay strangers – there’s 7.7 billion people in the world after all! – but some of them are potential friends just waiting to be met.

2 Acquaintance

Acquaintances make up most of the people we interact with. They are those that we recognise and know by name but don’t know well enough to have any emotional relationship with. The anthropologist Robin Dunbar has proposed what is known as ‘Dunbar’s number’ – that the human brain can comfortably maintain about 150 stable relationships at any one time. The actual number can range between 100 and 250, with 150 being an average for most people. Historically this was the number of people that was typically found in a village or community. The idea is that there is a limitation to the number of people that humans can maintain social contact with.

3 Friendly Acquaintance

Friendly acquaintances aren’t quite friends but are more than neutral acquaintances. These are the people you would say hello to and perhaps have small talk with if you met them. If all of your friendships at higher levels are fully developed, Dunbar’s number suggests that about 80 people out of the 150 would remain at this level. As a general guide, you usually need meet up with someone six to eight times before you begin to feel like friends – which is what a friendly acquaintance is. You feel friendly towards each other but aren’t fully friends yet.

4 Casual Friend

Casual friends are those you enjoy hanging out with and perhaps are in a shared group with. You enjoy each other’s company and have fun together, but you don’t tend to share your deepest vulnerabilities and probably wouldn’t go to them in a time of need. Casual friendships are usually based on common interests or shared circumstances. If the 150 people of Dunbar’s Number are your ‘tribe’, then the up to 50 people who form your casual friends are the equivalent of your ‘clan’. It takes around 50 hours of bonding time to develop a friendship to this level.

5 Good Friend

Good friends are people you know well. You can have fun together but have also developed a significant amount of trust. This is your second closest circle of friends and is made up of not more than 15 people. Good friends usually take up about a quarter of your total social time, which is about 1.7% of your social time per person. On average it can be expected to take 100 hours of bonding time to develop a friendship to this level.

6 Close Friend

Close friends form your inner circle and are your go-to friends for most difficult situations. These are people whom you really love, trust, and know very well. Most people can only maintain up to five close friends, or four if they’re in a romantic relationship. This inner circle of close friends takes up about half of your total social time, meaning you spend 10% of your social time with each, or 20% for a romantic partner. Because these people are so close and you spend a lot of time with them, they are highly influential and will shape who you become. It’s not for nothing that there’s a saying that you’re the sum of the five people closest to you. Be friendly to everyone, but don’t let just anyone into this inner circle. As a guide, it takes approximately 200 hours of bonding time to develop a friendship to this level.

7 Best Friend

Best friends are included within the four or five people of your inner circle, but are the one or perhaps two of them that you feel closest to of all. For example, if you were to get married, your close friends would be those who you’d probably choose as bridesmaids whereas your best friend would be the one you’d single out to be your maid of honour. If you’re in a healthy, committed, long-term romantic relationship then your partner would most likely be equivalent to the best friend level as well.

8 Old Friend

Old friends are almost in a category of their own, which can make them difficult to place. We all change and our friendships change throughout life. Some people we stay close with or in contact to, whilst other people fade out of our lives or drift into its fringes. Old friends perhaps used to be a close friend or even best friend but are no longer. They may now be more on the friendly acquaintance level or not even in your life at all, but they still hold the remnant and memory of what used to be. Perhaps you feel nostalgic about their friendship sometimes, or maybe sad. Either way they hold the sense of something past rather than something with unknown promise, which separates them from other people at the same friendship level as them. Old friends once knew you well and may know things about you that no one else does, but they no longer have that closeness or intimacy that they once did. Sometimes old friendships can be revived; other times you just have to learn to let them go and seek new friends elsewhere.

The Three Human Motivations

‘Human behaviour is complicated; human motivation is simple.’ So says Larry C Rosen in his TEDx talk, which I will link below. There’s much truth in the statement, and in his talk Rosen proposes what he thinks the three underlying human motivations are. I think it’s important to learn to understand others better if we want to become better women, or even just better people, so I wanted to share the ideas here.

Yet, I couldn’t help thinking why? Why are these three motives behind every human decision? Each is somewhat simplified and boiled down to include a range of different needs, but the three key motives still stand. I decided to give my own twist on it instead of simply sharing someone else’s ideas, and that involved turning to the Bible. I was curious to see whether I could find these three motives in the creation story of humans. The short answer is yes, I did. These motives may be manifested in healthy or unhealthy ways, yet when they are healthy they tap into what God made us humans to be. When these core motivations manifest in unhealthy ways (as, unfortunately, they all too often do) they indicate a distorted corruption of what we were made to be and we need to be aware of that.

I started this post intending it to be about psychology and understanding people better, yet in the process of planning it seems to have turned in part into a mini Bible study. I guess the Bible just has a lot to say about our human condition. God knows us best. Anyway, let’s get to the point. The three core human motives are: physical, relational, and aspirational.

Motive One: Physical

‘And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’
Genesis 2:7

The Bible says that, as humans, we are made of earth and spirit combined. We are physical as well as spiritual beings, and as such we have physical needs. These can be seen in the physiological needs and safety needs at the foundation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We have the physical need for sustenance, health, a pain-free environment, rest, exercise, safety, and security. If we don’t have those, we will be motivated to gain them however we can.

Motive Two: Relational

‘And the LORD God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.’
Genesis 2:18

Humans are social creatures and pack animals. We are not meant to be alone, hence why God created Adam and Eve for each other. When we feel alone or isolated we will eventually be driven to change that, which can be a great thing when pursued in a healthy way – but unfortunately humans aren’t always healthy. This requirement is seen in the belonging and love needs and the esteem needs that form the middle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We have the relational need for love, empathy, community, friendships, intimacy, respect, and appreciation.

Motive Three: Aspirational

‘And the LORD God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.’
Genesis 2:15

It’s significant that one of the first things God did with His newly created humans was to give them a purpose. We were made in the image of God to become His partners in creating an even better world, and as such have an inner urge to explore. This is represented in the self-actualisation needs at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We have the aspirational need for creativity, curiosity, autonomy, meaning, purpose, and the achieving of our potential. This has been the motivation for many of the incredible discoveries and advancements that has led humanity to where we are today, however it has also been corrupted at times and led to the invention of terrible things as well.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

The thing is find interesting about this way of summarising human motivations is that it emphasises how all human actions originate from natural needs. It’s only in the way that those motives manifest that they sometimes get corrupted and become problematic. No matter how good or bad someone is, they are still human. That doesn’t make bad behaviour excusable – choice is a powerful responsibility we all have – but thinking this way helps to promote empathy. Kind or evil behaviour, though drastically different, can come from the same motive and are really just two sides of the same coin. Being aware of this should help us guard against our own choices to make sure we choose what is right, good, true, and kind, because the possibility of corruption is never far away. We have the power to choose what is right over what is easy.

Tag: psychology