“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” -Edith Lovejoy Pierce
We finally made it! 2018 people! And with a new year upon us, that brings New Year resolutions. When it comes to setting New Year resolutions, most people shoot for crazy big goals. We tell ourselves that this will be the year we’ll lose that weight, we will stop eating sugar or we will travel more. But the scary thing is, only 8 percent of people actually keep their New Year resolutions, according to one commonly cited statistic. There are many reasons people can’t stick to their resolutions, but my desire is that these few tips will get you to 2019 with accomplished goals in hand.
Dreams don’t come true, decisions do.
We all have those dreams in our mind of what we would like to accomplish but we don’t act on it. We dream of that Fixer Upper life where there is no TV in the house, we always make homemade meals, and our whole day is intentional. We want to be on our phone less or we want to spend more quality time with our kids. You tell yourself, “That would be nice but -enter excuse here-“. Instead of waking up saying “Someday” or”That would be nice”, wake up saying “TODAY”. Make the decision, and reach for that goal. Do not keep it a dream.
Write down your goal AND the steps to get there!
We all have said “I am going to lose weight!”, we told ourselves in our head we are going to wake up tomorrow morning to run and never do. Setting a vague goal with no road to get there will make you give up quickly. Instead, write out a goal you want to reach by the end of the year, be specific! Then, write out at least 5 steps you need to do, to get to that goal. If it is a lofty goal you might need more steps or mini goals to reach that big goal. Either way, be specific!!
Check Lists are your friend
Confession time: I have a hard time cleaning my house. I don’t like it getting dirty but pulling myself up to do the actual work makes my brain hurt to think about. So what did I do to fix that? I now have a white board hanging on my fridge. On it I have my goals I need to do daily and I have weekly goals below it. Each day I need to check off all the daily goals and one of the weekly goals. Since making that list I have not missed one day. NOT ONE. The satisfaction of checking off my list daily and being able to sit down, look at that list and not get the sense of “ugh I need to get up to do that”, is SO satisfying. So create a list that you can clearly see and check it off daily!
The end goal should be a way to live a more meaningful life.
Why this goal? What about it will make you happy? What about it will improve your life? Your dream isn’t inspiring, living a meaningful life is. If someone put a gun to your head and said ‘give me one reason for you to live’, what would this reason be? What do you stand for? What is your life’s purpose? If you want to make your life meaningful, you need to find its meaning first. Otherwise, you cannot really set a meaningful goal.
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
Elisabeth is a photographer is the Akron/Canton area. For more information about her click here. If you would like to contact her click here.
