If you are like me, the time from Thanksgiving this year has been even more of a blur than usual because of the shortest possible time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, now that Christmas has past, schedules calm down and there is time to reflect on where we have been and where we want to go.
The failed New Year’s resolution is a cultural icon. We all automatically make the same resolutions every year, and by February they have gone by the wayside, if we even think of them again after we make them.
The concept behind New Year’s resolutions makes sense. We are starting a New Year, with a clean slate. It’s the perfect time to set goals and make plans for what we want to accomplish during the year. However, too often, we make the wrong resolutions, ones that aren’t tied to our own priorities, or we are not realistic or we don’t put a structure in place to guarantee success. It might be also that you haven’t realistically identified and addressed the obstacles to your success. If obstacles aren’t addressed, they stop our progress. You might also have not created the infrastructure or support to follow through and ensure success.
However, if you approach the resolution process realistically, with resolutions that are tied to YOUR priorities, that are yours and not someone else’s, and if you identify and address obstacles to achievement and develop processes to support their achievement, in 2020, you will succeed in keeping your resolutions and making progress toward your goals.
Why Have Goals?
Having our own goals and priorities is critical to our own success and mental health. Otherwise, we end up saying yes to things, that are someone else’s priorities, not our own. Our time is limited. Every time we say yes to someone else’s priorities, we are saying no to our own. We end up doing a lot of things we don’t want to do – we lose our right to live life by our own priorities. We end up resenting the people who made the requests.
The key to get out of this cycle is to have our own priorities clear in our minds at all times. This blog will discuss how to determine our priorities and set goals that can been turned into resolutions, and then creating a support system that will help in achieving these priorities.
What Are Your Priorities?
Your resolution need to be tied to your priorities – for example, identifying and nurturing the people, causes, and spiritual connections that have meaning for you, or achieving personal or professional goals.
A good way to start is to determine what is important to you in each aspect of your life:
· Personal/ Self
· Family
· Friends
· Community
· Career
Not all aspects of our life will be equally important to us at any point in time. However, you would want to look at each aspect of your life to see if you are neglecting an aspect of your life, and whether you will want to reassess your focus.
What are your goals? What do you want to achieve? Short term? Mid term? Creating and really understanding our individual goals takes time. Consider your wants, desires, aspirations and concerns. What is important to you?
You might want to distill your priorities into a single overarching focus. Start with a list of interests that are motivating you and try to summarize them into a single phrase that captures their essence.
Test your goals. Envision what achieving this goal would mean to your life. This can help you see how important this goal is to you. If you are inspired and energized by the vision of you achieving this goal, then great! If you can’t envision this being important to you, then its time to look at something else. Also look at the goal from the other side -- What are the consequences of your not following through on the resolutions?
Be realistic. If you are like me, you get enthusiastic and come up with too many priorities. Then, when I can’t work on or make progress on all of them, because I just don’t have the time, I get frustrated, and disillusioned. Consider all the goals you have set against the time you have available to work on them, and prioritize. Other goals which are not for immediate focus can still be in the background, on a long term vision board, etc., to be readdressed periodically and moved to the forefront in the future.
Creating a Structure for Success
Sometimes we have set priorities and goals that are right for us, but we haven’t created an environment that will help us succeed. We need to look at both obstacles that might be impeding our goals and how having a support system can help us succeed.
What are the obstacles in our paths that stop us from keeping on our resolutions? Consider your goals and think of what obstacles might hinder your attaining the goal. Some obstacles are internal to us, and others are external.
· Internal obstacles may include time, as already discussed. Others might include experience, confidence,
· External obstacles may include resources, decisions that are not ours to make, help needed from others, etc.
Look at each of your priorities and think about what obstacles could exist. What can you do to address the obstacle?
Reviewing your goals and potential obstacles will help you create an infrastructure to help you achieve your objectives. Having a personal support system in place can help you be successful. Your support system might include friends and family that know and support your goals and will help you with resources, introductions, encouragement, etc.
Review Your Goals Periodically
Most of us create New Year’s resolutions and promptly forget about them – never reviewing them. It’s important to set a predetermined time – say once a month– to revisit and revise your goals and plan based on what you have learned.
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Having our own goals top of mind keeps us focused on what is important to us, and enhances the probability that we will achieve our New Year’s resolutions.
By the way, one of my 2020 goals is to create teaching videos and post them on this blog. I have been posting some timelapsed videos of my demos on Facebook, but its time to step it up. Knowing my need for equipment, several of my students bought me a tripod, microphone and iphone mount for Christmas — so that barrier is gone! I’m committing to you — look for more blogging with videos in 2020. I’ll have to work out logistics, but I now have a plan. Good luck with your goals and your plan!