Setting Goals in the New Year
It’s finally 2022 (thank the lord) which means talk about resolutions and goals for the New Year are probably still among the many conversations you’re having in your day to day life. While there is nothing wrong with having those conversations, sometimes setting goals and creating new routines can seem daunting. I am in no way an expert in goal-setting nor have I found the perfect system to ensure that all the goals I am trying to set will actually be done, but I feel like I have finally found some sort of system to make me actually excited for my goals and have taken steps to change my mindset about these so-called resolutions we all make.
Creating healthy habits and sticking to them is no easy feat, but by really listening to yourself and taking the proper steps to visualize what you want your end goal to be is a really helpful place to start. Think about what you want to accomplish…LITTLE THINGS you want to accomplish. I think the biggest mistake I have made in the past has been setting super crazy and more long-term goals, then being hard on myself when those things didn’t happen- because they weren’t ever going to. Leave the big, big things for your dream board. Yes, it’s good to keep those big dreams in mind when setting your goals but you have to start small. Say for example you want to travel more. Well, first you need to think about where you want to go. Got a place? Great. Now you need to think about when you want to go. Is it tomorrow? A week from now? A year from now? Once you figure that out, you need to go through how much it will cost. So what is the goal you would set for right now? Saving money for ___ trip. Not only does this put an exact title on what you want to do- that being the traveling. But it helps you to have more of an attainable and tactile goal, instead of a dream.
Something I love to do every year is create a “bucket list” styled list of things I want to do for the next year. It’s called “23 before 2023” meaning 23 things I want to do before 2023. In the past, I have fallen into the habit of being too broad and not actually accomplishing any of the things on the list. But this year, I went simple. And I mean SIMPLE. A few examples from my list? Try Hello Fresh. Read 5 books. Bake a pie from scratch. Run a 5k in under 30 minutes. SIMPLE. Yes, it may be a little silly, but these are things that are actually attainable for me to do in my life right now. Not 5 years from now. Not even 1 year from now. Right now. Now of course I have some long-term goals there too, but I have made those into the smaller step goals to make them more digestible and to help me create healthier habits.
Speaking of creating healthier habits… Like I said, it is not always easy!! But I think the biggest thing you can try to do first is to try to change your mindset about your goals. Don’t say you need to save money because you're bad with money. Even if that’s the truth, say you need to save it because you want to have money to enjoy a dinner with your friends. Or save it because you want that one apartment you’ve been looking at for months. Make your goals correlate with something you are excited for so it’s easier to actually keep them. You can also make goals to help change your mindset!! For example, I recently was given The Five Minute Journal (which I cannot recommend enough) and it has helped me with my personal goal about journaling more. And in turn, that has also helped to pay attention to the good in every single day…even when the day is “terrible.”
It’s crazy what small changes can do to make huge changes in your life, but the small steps are so necessary.
*Edited by Carly Herbert
