So by now, I assume all of us have entered the year of 2023. Props to both you and I for making it this far. We have all made our memories, had our ups and downs, worked towards things we desired and most importantly, learnt a great number of lessons which helped with our self-development. We have all been to different places; tried diverse restaurants; had plenty of experiences. All of these things have been knitted into a warm piece of cloth that you shall wrap around your loved ones and reminisce the memories with.
You may have noticed something though, today is indifferent from yesterday. You woke up and carried out your day just as you would. Why is that? Because the idea of time or having a date is a social construct, made by humans as a measurement, nothing more than that.
So now we move onto the spine of this post…
My Personal Experience with New Year Resolutions
I personally do not like the idea of having new year resolutions. Do you want to know why? I do not like partaking in the idea that my goals have to be within the deadline of a specific year, this opinion may change throughout the years but currently, this is how I think. Moreover, the idea of \”New Year Resolutions\” feels limiting, it also does not feel like a personal journey since it is something that most of the world does throughout these times.
New Year Resolutions is a Trend
I conducted a quick \”Google Trends\” search to look at how many people are searching the term \”gym membership\” worldwide in the past 12 months. I chose this specific goal because health goals are pretty common.
![\"\"](\"https://bintaryam.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/image-1.png?w=1024\")
We can clearly see a decline during the week after January 1st of 2022 and an incline the week before January 1st of 2023. This shows that a larger number of people decide that those dates are when they decide to make a change. This is what makes it feel like a trend rather than a personal journey.
Should You Just Scrap Your New Year Resolutions?
You have seen me spend the past couple of lines just ranting on how new year resolutions are a trend and how I do not like them. I do not think you should throw away your new year resolutions, I am going to ask you to turn them into proper descriptive goals for you to actually achieve them. I am also going to show you how you can get the best out of your goals.
Goal-setting is in fact very diverse and complicated, it will be very difficult to break it down in one post but I am going to create an overall simple summary which you can expand on.
I want you to take out your list now and follow through with the steps, it will be more practical than you just reading them out and not acting upon them.
1. Scratch off Unnecessary Goals
Do you really want to learn Spanish? We would all love to snap our fingers and speak every single language out there, but some of us may not find that it is actually worth all the effort to achieve that specific goal. Look at every single goal you have on your list and see whether it moves your heart and you feel like you would love to indulge in that journey of achieving that goal. If not, then scratch it off and focus on the other goals that you are actually passionate about.
2. Define Each Goal’s Purpose
Go through your list and write down your \”why\”. Why do you want to follow-through and achieve that goal of yours? What purpose is going to drive you to achieve that goal? Write it down write next to your goal. If you find out that the goal has no purpose, then it\’s an unnecessary goal so scratch it. Also keep in mind, the purpose has to be crazy, crazy enough to make you want to desire it.
3. Make Them Specific
Goals like \”exercise more\” are too vague and won\’t lead you to exercising more. You should decide on exactly what you want, how much you want to weigh, how often you want to work out, the types of workouts you want to do. I call this the \”research phase\” where you learn more about your goal and how you can execute it. You should work on building a plan on how you can achieve that specific goal. There are many different ways to plan for your goals, I\’ll leave that up to you since all of us have different capabilities and different ways of doing things, just make sure you are being specific. You can always ask me if you feel stuck!
4. Track Your Progress
This is very important, what is the point of having a goal if you cannot see how much you are progressing? You should have some way to track your goal. Some of us may have daily or perhaps weekly checkups to see our progress. Some of us may prefer using excel sheets and graph data. It all depends on what you prefer. You may even just write it down on a notepad. It does not really matter how you do it, what matters is you having a method of tracking.
5. Don\’t Beat Yourself Up
We may all trip once in a while, do not beat yourself up for that. You can always get back on track, that\’s the most important thing about falling off the track. Keep in mind, you falling off the track does not mean that you are going to start again from zero, rather you are going to have a closer starting position to your goal the next time. You should consider that you are going to get back on track much faster each time you fail, so do not beat yourself up, this is a journey. Do not forget to seek support from people who have been through a similar journey since they could help guide and provide you with advice.
Conclusion
I have done my best to cover some points but it feels like this is just the tip of the iceberg, there is so much detail one can get into when it comes to setting and achieving goals. That in itself is a journey everyone should consider to ensure they achieve their goals as efficiently as possible. Do not be shy and reach out to me if you have a question or need help setting or achieving your goals, I will gladly help with what I know! Since helping out more people is a goal of my own 😂.