BENGALURU: With a handful of days left in the year, I frantically try to be more like the people in my Instagram stories. Not the ones who backpacked across three continents and wrote two books – they won a race I never planned to enter. I’m talking about the other kids: the ones who boldly state their goals and plans and resolutions for the new year.
Like all of this isn’t stressful enough, they casually throw in the word ‘decade,’ either while bragging or while setting their milestones. Why am I being forced to ask myself existential questions just because the word sounds cool and serious? For all intents and purposes, I will spend the next few paragraphs talking about my goals for the next year. If that seems too tame for you, just replace it with decade in your head.
After extensive research (also known as copy-and-pasting the very first thing that pops up on a casual Google search), I can tell you that your goals have to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. I do think, however, that they forgot to account for another R – realistic. And no, it’s not the same thing as achievable. Cutting back on junk food may be achievable, but it is not realistic in a household that goes into panic when we’re down to the last two chips packets.
All that aside, I am proud to say I have done some things this year. I finally submitted my Ph.D thesis. I Marie Kondo-d most of my life (my online cart is full of things that will definitely not spark joy three months later, but that’s for future Bindu to figure out). I embraced my role as a cat dad (my husband is most definitely the cat mom). I count this as half an accomplishment because I am not as assertive a cat dad as I need to be; I have politely excused myself from conference calls and social gatherings, to be marched to the treats cupboard more times than I can count.
If you are anti-resolutions, I feel your pain. But I found a simple solution – the second R they left out of SMART. After many years of setting goals like “I will lose 20 kilos” and “I will not buy every Lego set I see,” I have decided to be more realistic. So here go my SMART targets for the year (okay, decade) to come: I will carry at least one cookie in my purse at all times. It is specific (and if you are not satisfied, I will happily list three favourite brands), measurable, achievable (provided I always have a backup cookie), relevant, and time-bound (did you not see how I casually used the word ‘decade’?).
And that’s as SMART as I will get.