The momentum has slowed. The joy and excitement was built for over a month long. We did the thing, opened presents, ate candy all day, played with our new toys. Now for a whole week we’ve done nothing. The only reason you know what day it is now is because you’re reading MMM. Sure, you could go out with a bang in 2024, but I doubt anyone wants to start 2025 with a hangover.

Before you start rolling your eyes, I’m not launching an assault here. With public editorial pieces, be it a nationally-subscribed newspaper or wanna-be influencer post, there are almost always one of two narratives. It’s either ‘Here’s a foolproof system for staying consistent with your habits to achieve your resolutions’ or ‘You should have already been doing what you’re supposed to do, so if you need resolutions then you have no discipline’ and there’s no in between. This post is neither. By all means, celebrate a holiday. Ring in the new year with a kiss from your sweetheart, drop the ball, toast the glass, eat the lucky peas. Whenever it is that you’re ready to start the new year, please continue reading.

If you’ve ever had a legitimate New Year’s resolution, or even any long term goal, you’ve probably heard of the SMART goal framework: Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely. It can and has been a great tool for many to help outline a goal. The problem with this is that the system does almost nothing to help the user understand the daily, practical efforts that are needed to actually reach a long term goal. That’s what I’m here to do. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert life coach guru, but I do claim to be very good at my job which is to objectively make athletes better at their sport by teaching them how to use training in an aggressive, but methodical way. It turns out that this process that I use with athletes can be extrapolated to almost any other system in life because your body makes gains in a very similar way that your mind and your soul do.

Without further ado: The Pragmatist’s Approach to Goal Execution (P.A.G.E.)

1 - Inception. This is where nearly the entire SMART framework fits in. This is taking your emotion, motivation, obligation, etc. out of the ether and being able to put it onto paper or on the calendar. Go ahead, do it.

2 - Categorization. Now is where you place your goal into one of two paths: Lifestyle or Objective. An achieved lifestyle goal would look like a way of life that is brand new, different in one or many ways, and hopefully in a positive way. An achieved objective goal would look like a singular or cumulative measurement that can and will happen at a specific moment in time e.g. a dollar amount in your bank account, a promotion at your work, amount of weight lifted in the bench press, purchase of a home. Pick one.

3 - Appraisal. This step is a little more personal and requires a bit of discernment, so pay attention. Everyone has a value hierarchy (whether you know it or not) and determining which value[s] your goal impacts most will help determine how you go about navigating the next two steps. Look at the broad value hierarchy below, adjust the structure to your own life accordingly if needed, and insert your goal where you think it’s best suited in one of the 5 sections.

4 - Implementation. Based on how important your goal is to your life as a whole should determine how often you visit it within the routine of your life. Here’s the rub. If your goal falls into the categories 1-3, it should be a daily practice. I truly hope I’m not breaking this to you as news, but if you don’t interact with your faith, your family or your health in an intentional way on a daily basis, your value hierarchy is out of whack. If this is, indeed, hitting you in this moment, I’m glad to have been able to help. All of that to say, if your goal falls into one of these categories, your aim should be to practice it and set micro-objectives every single day to work towards your goal. Even if that means reciting a 15 second prayer, sending a text to a different family member each day, or taking a 10 minute walk after dinner before you lock in on HBO Max, then do it.

If your goal falls into categories 4 or 5, the challenge now becomes gaining ground on your goal without allowing your practice to fade and simultaneously not over-doing it. Re-visit Step 1 (the SMART goal section) and find your estimated day of goal-completion. Now, break that time up in half. Determine a half-SMART goal time and put that on the calendar. Now, break those two sections each in half and do the same thing. Do this as many times as needed until you reach the highest resolution time period possible, be it every other day or once per month. This seems trivial, but every time you go to schedule your week or look at your calendar, it will be enough reminder or enough of a governor to appropriately sacrifice your time toward achieving your goal. Be disciplined in the sense that you’re as strict as possible with this. Not doing more or less that what you’ve already prescribed, as to not misplace this endeavor in your value hierarchy.

5 - Adaptation. While the execution of Step 4 seemed fairly more complex than a SMART goal, Step 5 will really throw you if you’re not attentive. Let’s say, for example, that your goal fell into Category 4 because you want a new job that pays more. Let’s also say that you’ve determined that you need to apply to at least one new position every week until you’re hired to said job. Let’s then hypothesize that you were consistent for 5 weeks and then you missed a week because you spent the week traveling for a family event. Two notes. The first, look at the reason you missed your weekly objective. Family. Where is family in your values? Much more important than your career. Even though you missed your weekly objective, you can be grateful that your priorities are in order. Don’t allow this situation to dampen your time with your family. Secondly, how do you go about handling the failure of this situation? I see three possibilities. You can “make it up” by applying to two jobs the following week, you can simply resume the plan and let byegones be byegones, or you can let your disdain about your failure pull you into a downward spiral until your goal fades into the background. Speaking to the first two, as long as this plan of action doesn’t impede your value hierarchy and place your career above something that’s supposed to be more important to you, I see no problem with either. I won’t even address the last possibility.

This is a specific, but relatable and practical example of how to adapt to objective failure or the regular curveballs that life likes to throw at us. Always refer back to your value hierarchy and stay true to it in your lifestyle. Otherwise, your goal will become your god. Then, when 2026 rolls around, you will have moved backwards in life.

The possibilities of what this could look like for your life and your goals are literally endless. That’s the beauty of it. Anyone can use it for any goal. The problem with it is that it’s a model. It’s a system. No system is perfect. Think of the most powerful system you can imagine, and immediately you can conjure up grievances you have with it. If the most that this post does for you is to spark an idea to come up with your own model to accomplish a goal, then it did its job. You must have agency to accomplish a goal. You must have autonomy just to set a goal. Pay attention, be specific, be disciplined, and remember what you value. I’ll catch you next year!