While some might revel in the chance to make New Year’s resolutions, they can fill others with fear, knowing there’s a good chance their attempts will be futile. But we’re not going to try and convince you to make resolutions and instead, would like to focus more on how you can make this year the best one yet.
Do you want a new job? A new skill? To expand your own role or to take on a new project? Or do you want to continue what you’re doing but find a better way to balance it with your home life? Do you want to use this year to commit to more self-care?
Think about your results, not just your goals. What do you want this year to look like? What will make you happy at the end of the year? And most importantly, what kind of things do you need to do to make that happen?
Once you know what you want, it’s important create some specific goals to go with it. Again, we’re not trying to force some New Year’s resolutions on you just for the sake of it because those are the very ones you are most likely to fall down on.
While SMART goals are good for keeping you in check and ensuring your goals aren’t too vague or unrealistic, making a big overarching goal, rather than constant specific tasks you have to stick to can actually be more beneficial.
For example, a goal to run 10K in June is something you can work towards and will require regular exercise to get your fitness levels up. But if your goal is to run for 30 minutes every single day, you’re more likely to feel bad if you miss a few days. An end goal can keep you focused on those days when you can’t stick to your ‘daily requirements’.
Planning your goals, creating targets and setting up tracking systems is a great way to get you motivated for the year ahead, but it can also feed your fear of actually starting any of them. When you needed to study for a big exam, were you that student who spent ages organising your notes, colour coordinating them and separating them into categories? You get the idea.
Planning is important, but be careful not to let it get in the way of actually achieving your goals. Sometimes the most important part of accomplishing something is to start it.
We’ve talked before about the importance of self-reflection and evaluation when it comes to your career goals and it’s no less important when you’re looking at the year as a whole.
Regularly checking in with yourself is important when it comes to making this year ‘your’ year. Are the goals you were hoping to achieve still achievable? Have you discovered something else that will make you happier that you would like to focus on instead?
Remember, there’s no point in continuing with goals if they’re making you unhappy or burnt out, so having your best year yet doing what you really want and that may change as the year progresses.
It’s all too easy to focus on achieving the first goal, then completing the next goal and so on without taking the time to look at how well you’ve done so far.
As part of your self-reflection, make sure you’re always looking back at what you’ve done so far that you’re proud of. Make sure you’re giving yourself a pat on the back regularly for what you’ve achieved so far.
Not only that, but if you figure out something isn’t working, this should be praised too. You can only figure out what is and isn’t working by taking action and that in itself should be commended.
Cheering man photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
