A study by Norcross, Mrykalo and Blagys investigated the impact of New Year's resolutions on the likelihood that someone would achieve their goals.

The researchers spent six months following several hundred people who were interested in changing a major health related problem in their lives, such as losing weight or quitting smoking.

They surveyed the group to find out who had made a New Year's resolution to help them achieve their goal. Fifty six per cent had while 44 per cent had not.

As you might suspect, a significant portion - 25 per cent - of those who made a formal resolution had given up by the end of the first week.

Yet what is truly surprising is that while almost all (96 per cent) of the people who wanted to improve their health - but who had not made resolutions - had given up by the six month mark, almost half (46 per cent) of those who made a resolution were still on track.

The ritualized act of making a formal New Year's resolution, it seems, makes it much more likely that you will actually achieve your goal.

Yet not all goals are created equal. Business goals are often vague. Get rich. Work less. Survive in a difficult economy. Keep more of the money you earn.

For years consultants have urged clients to set "SMART" goals, which are "specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely". While this sounds very rational, research has found that SMART goals may in fact be rather "dumb".

A recent study by LeadershipIQ looked for goal-setting techniques that helped employees achieve great things at work. In their in-depth study of 4182 employees from 397 organizations they found two things of particular interest.

First, our ability to be challenged and learn new things as part of achieving a goal is very important. Their research identified eight factors that had the greatest impact on an employee's ability to achieve great things at work.

Equally interesting was issues related to SMART goals did not appear in any of those eight factors and furthermore, a separate analysis of how SMART goals found no meaningful correlation between the use of SMART goals and employees achieving great things.

If you want to make effective New Year's resolutions for your business, you will want to incorporate these eight factors, which are ranked in order of importance to being able to actually achieve great things within an organization:

1. Ability to Visualize Success. "I can vividly picture how great it will feel when I achieve my goals."
2. Need to Learn New Skills. "I will have to learn new skills to achieve my assigned goals for this year."
3. Necessity. "My goals are absolutely necessary to help this company."
4. Active Participation. "I actively participated in creating my goals for this year."
5. Access to Training. "I have access to any formal training that I will need to accomplish my goals."
6. Difficulty. "My goals for this year will push me out of my comfort zone."
7. Meaning. "My goals will enrich the lives of somebody besides me (customers, the community, etc.)."
8. Alignment. "My goals are aligned with the organization’s top priorities for this year."

If you haven't done so already, there is still time for you to set a New Years resolution for your business. Whether you decide to stick with the traditional goal setting approach or want to try the new approach suggested by LeadershipIQ, either way you are likely to be ahead of those who set no goals at all.