In the New Year, an Auntie’s fancy starts to turn to resolutions and goals for 2012.

Most New Year’s resolutions are broken within the first month or two of the new year, but you can be successful by taking some time to plan out your goals, Auntie. You can also help your nieces and nephews have their own successful year.

Goals for Aunties

For your own resolutions, take stock and ask yourself what you want to change, what you want to stop doing, and what you want to start doing. For years, the SMART goal acronym has encouraged us to create Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound goals. Other words can be substituted for these depending on your needs, and newer versions have added an ER – Evaluate and Re-evaluate.

Be specific. Saying “lose weight,” “get organized,” or “save more money” are vague, and you want to be specific, such as “I want to lose 25 pounds,” “I want to clear out the clothes I no longer wear in my closet,” or “I want a certain amount of money in savings by the end of the year.” 

Break your larger goal into smaller steps. The big goal can be overwhelming, but if you break it into smaller steps, you increase the likelihood of successfully reaching your goal.

Let’s go back to the weight loss goal. If you’ve been a couch potato, jumping into a daily gym routine will more than likely lead to failure by February. Set a smaller goal of exercising two to three days a week to start and increase the number of your workouts. Using the closet organization goal, smaller goals can be sorting and purging your dresses one week. The next week, go through your sleeveless shirts.

Get Help. For some goals, you may need a life or business coach, a therapist, a trainer, a professional organizer, or other professional assistance. If you don’t need a professional, find an accountability buddy such a friend or colleague. Check in with each other and make sure you both are on track with your goals. In the age of Social Media, some people are using Twitter or Facebook to publicly declare their goals and create accountability.

Goals for Your Nieces and Nephews

Talk to your nieces and nephews and ask them what goals they would like to accomplish in the coming year or what habits they want to change. Since writing down goals help reinforce resolutions, help them write down their own SMARTER goals or create a collage or vision board with pictures from magazines.

Help them set small goals and check in with them on how they’re doing on their resolutions. Depending on what their goal is, the two of you can make a chart to track their progress so they can see where they started and how they’re doing.

Become their accountability buddy. Offer encouragement and even a reward – such as lunch with you -- if they’ve made progress.

For example, a friend whose grade-school age niece was receiving a daily note about her behavior at school issued a challenge: go a week without a note and she would get a prize. Once the first week was completed, my friend told her niece, “I knew you could do it, and you’ve earned your prize. You can get a bigger prize if you can go for two weeks.”

By setting specific goals and steps, you and your nieces and nephews can be have a very happy and successful 2012.