New Year Shmoo Year
Fooled ya with that blog title. I don’t care what anyone says, I actually LOVE celebrating New Year’s. I love making resolutions. I love thinking about the opportunity to work with a clean slate, the yearly second chance, the reminder to list all the things I want to do in life, all the ways I wish to grow and prosper. It doesn’t have to be January 1 of course, but there’s something refreshing about it and I’m happy to adhere to it. I reassess my goals throughout the year for sure, and not always on the firsts of the month or Mondays 😉. But the beginning of the year lifts me up at the perfect time, the time in the season where I tend to want to hide under the covers, and eat and sleep all day, aka winter.
Most of us who make resolutions don’t keep them . . . that’s not headline news. BUT that doesn’t mean we have to dismiss the whole idea. Just because we’re bad at doing something, it doesn’t always mean we should quit doing it. Maybe we should learn how to do it better. There are countless tricks and proven hacks related to creating new habits and breaking old ones, but I’m going to just get you started with the most important one. MAKE A PLAN. A goal without a plan stands no chance. Period.
So THIS year, if you’re going to make some resolutions, give them a real chance by following these 3 simple steps. Once you get these steps down, then you can fine tune your habit breaking/making skills with unlimited resources out there to help you really solidify these goals.
But for now, START HERE:
1. WRITE THEM DOWN. Write your goals down so you have something concrete to which you can hold yourself accountable. To which you can look back and reflect. Yes, it’s uncomfortable to write something down with the prospect of looking back on it to see what you haven’t accomplished. However, it is SO worth the chance that you’ll look back on it and see that you actually have accomplished what you set out to do. I worked with a life coach in 2013. She kept in my file my three top goals I’d like to accomplish in 5 years. I called her a few months ago since I was feeling a little confused about things and thought I might need a boost. She asked me if I remembered what my 5 year goals were that I wrote down 5 years ago. I said no. She read them out loud to me and I almost burst into tears. I had accomplished all three—made me feel like I should have aimed a lot higher because I DID IT. I completed a yoga training (and so much more additional training), I found the person I’m committing the rest of my life to, and I’m running my own business (teaching movement and yoga full time). Write that shit DOWN.
2. CREATE MICRO GOALS. Remember, a goal without a plan stands no chance. It’s not even worth doing step one if you don’t attempt the following steps. Creating micro goals gets you into the planning stage. Micro goals are the goals within the goal—the stepping stones. If my 2019 goal is to run a marathon, then some micro goals might be intermittent shorter races throughout the year, or to find the perfect running coach. You can create as many micro goals as you need to make the bigger goal start feeling doable.
3. CREATE TASK LISTS: Every micro goal gets a task list—this is an essential part of the plan!!! Making your goals attainable by giving yourself actual, doable daily tasks to get you to each stepping stone will get you closer to your bigger goal. If a micro goal is to find the right running coach, my task list might be:
—Contact so and so friend to ask about their running coaches.
—Research local running coaches online.
—Determine how much money I have to spend on a running coach for the whole year.
If another micro goal is to run shorter races throughout the year, my task list might be:
—Research and sign up for a 5k, 10k and half marathon.
—Join the local running club to help train for shorter races.
—buy some new running shoes.
Just like the micro goals, you can list as many tasks as you need to feel like you can truly accomplish the micro goal. Every micro goal gets a task list!!!
Hope this helps!! In the end, if you’re not into resolutions every New Year, just do yourself a favor and ask yourself WHY. If it’s because you already have goals set and you’re chugging away, awesome! If it’s because you’re afraid you will not reach your goals . . . you know what to do. See you on the other side!
keep moving.
alia