Do you set New Year’s Resolution every year?
Personally I have never been a believer in resolutions. I know!! Crazy, right?!?!
Resolutions seem to fall by the wayside, where goals……when you put in the time and effort to make them SMART goals, flourish and become completely attainable. Goals don’t just trail off and become afterthoughts like resolutions tend to do. Most resolutions are forgotten about before January even ends.
The New Year is a great time to reflect on the past year – what went well and what didn’t go so well. Those reflections are a great starting point to determine what goals you set for the New Year ahead. You can update goals that you didn’t quite reach. Goals change. Situations change. Life happens. Revisiting your goals every so often allows you to be able to tweak them as things do change.
Do you set goals for yourself? If yes, GREAT JOB!! If not, what’s stopping you? Goals give us direction and help us grow. They make us better. If you don’t set goals, how do you know where you want this path called life to take you? Some of us are completely happy with never setting a single goal while others have a huge desire to set goals, to achieve goals, and to continue to grow.
Something new I’m doing this year is picking 3 words to bring me clarity and to keep me focused on what I’m working towards achieving this year. Do you pick a word for yourself each year? Or even 3, like me?
The three words I have chosen for myself this year are: CHANGE, CHOICES, and COMMITMENT.
If you know me well, then you know that I have always been hard headed and resisted change with every fiber of my being. Over the last couple of years I have really come to understand that change is necessary, it is inevitable, and whether I like it or not – it’s happening every single day all around me. So this year, I am embracing change! I am welcoming change! I am ready to change! I am reflecting on what I’ve been doing in the past that has kept me from attaining my goals. I will be changing what hasn’t been working. This will only help me grow and become better.
Every day we make choices. We choose to get out of bed when the alarm goes off OR we choose to hit snooze and sleep for 10 more minutes. We choose to get dressed for the day OR we choose to stay in our jammies all day. Even when we feel like we don’t have a choice – we really do! When you say “I HAVE to get dressed and go to work”, you are making a choice. It’s your choice, and you are doing it because YOU are choosing to do it. You have the choice to stay home or you have the choice to go to work. Of course, our choices can have consequences, but in reality, we are choosing our own path and the choices that we make every single day, put us on that path – OUR path.
One way I am going to help motivate myself this year is to remember exactly this. I can choose between vegging out on the couch binge watching the latest and greatest show OR I can choose to read a book, chat with a friend, or go for a hike. I will be asking myself, “Does this action create value?” and if the answer is yes, then the choice I make is easy. Some day’s vegging out on the couch will bring value. If I’m feeling exhausted or burned out, then some down time will add value. Other days, going on that hike with my puppies will add value.
You can choose to commit to yourself or you can choose not to. But, if you want to achieve your goals then commitment is essential. Without commitment, you are just making halfhearted promises to yourself and aren’t really serious about actually achieving your goals. The definition of commitment is “the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc”. Being dedicated to YOU, YOUR goals, YOUR dreams, whatever it is YOU aspire to achieve, will bring a tremendous amount of value to YOU and YOUR life.
I am choosing to change this year and be committed to bettering myself and attaining the goals that I set for myself. Who’s with me? No more excuses! It’s time to make shit happen!!
