You should set SMART goals. Be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. You should set goals that stretch you but not too much. You should you should you should…. doesn’t it get boring hearing so many principles about goal setting over and over again?

How many times have you set your “resolutions” only to give up on them mid-January?

I remember last January I thought it would be fun to discuss our yearly goals as a Family at the dinner table once a week. The first week everyone gave some great responses — not drinking soda, no social media, eating healthier.

But by the second week, I got blank stares as I asked everyone how they were doing. Nobody seemed to care anymore.

It was as if they had all given up.

How many years has this been your story?

Finally committing to that weight loss plan, only to give up after the first donut comes within eyesight. Maybe you do make it a few weeks but that donut starts to wear you down and you eventually give in.

Deciding this is going to be the year that you finally deepen your relationship with your kids, only to give up upon realizing how hard it will be before you even start. Or after a few weeks of nothing working, you fail to keep trying.

Maybe it’s making the commitment to working harder towards a promotion at your job but finding, after a couple of weeks, that you’d rather continue to waste time on YouTube every day.

You can end the vicious cycle of broken commitments and resolutions, and here’s how.

The only pattern you need to reach your goals

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” — Elbert Hubbard

What was the common theme throughout all of your past failed goals?

You stopped working on them.

You may be excellent at setting SMART goals. Stretching yourself and everything. But when it really comes down to it, there is only ONE principle that will beat out everything else when it comes to actually reaching them.

Consistency.

The only real way to fail is to stop trying and give up completely. You need to do everything in your power to set goals and make plans to accomplish them in a way that guarantees that you will not give up.

If you can learn to become consistent at working on your goals, then you will accomplish them. It’s a small effort, applied over a long period of time that yields the most significant results in our lives.

Think of a tree root that has cracked a concrete sidewalk. Did the root grow all at once, with sudden great force? No, it was the consistent growth over time that broke the heavy walkway.

If you want to accomplish your goals, you need to learn and practice the principle of consistency. If you can guarantee that you will not quit your goals, then you will be successful at reaching them.

So what can you and I do to ensure that we will maintain consistency?

Plan on spending a small enough time working on your goals each day that you can be consistent at it for an entire year.

I suggest 15 minutes for each goal. That’s it.

How long you work at your goals and how much you accomplish in each instance of practice is not as important as your level of consistency. If you practice this one principle, you will not break your resolutions.

If you can plan on being consistent at your goals, you will reach them.