Making New Year’s Resolutions You Can Keep!
Ok, I’ll be honest, I used to make New Year’s resolutions each year. And I can’t remember a single one that lasted past the end of January. I finally got tired of feeling like I was constantly failing and decided to figure out what was going wrong with my New Year’s resolutions
If you also struggle with New Year’s Resolutions, even if you’ve sworn you’ll never set another one, this episode is for you. I’m hoping by the end you’ll be excited to set your own goals for the coming year.
Because the path to creating your best life – a life you’re excited to wake up to each morning – is to become an active participant in your life. That means making conscious choices on what you do and how you spend your time, money, and energy. And if you’re not already living your best life, no matter what you call them, resolutions, goals, or something else, are the best way to shift the way you’re showing up for your life so you can make the conscious choices about what’s right for you!
The practice I’m sharing with you today will guide you through recognizing and celebrating all of your wins from last year (big and small). Setting goals for the upcoming year and breaking them down into manageable steps. And once you’ve celebrated your successes and set your goals for the upcoming year, it’s time to wipe the slate clean – creating space to welcome in all the new.
Just like a morning practice helps set the tone for your day, having a ritual which helps you close out the old year and welcome in the new sets the tone for the year to come.
Where New Year’s Resolutions Go Wrong. . .
Before we get started, I think it’s important to go through the issues I identified with my resolutions – maybe some of these will sound familiar.
Not thinking about where you’re starting
First – I was taking BIG swings. I was setting really lofty goals that were miles away from my current habits. These goals were things like – exercise for an hour every day – where the current situation was ZERO exercise, or reach and keep inbox zero – where the current situation was over 20,000 messages in my inbox.
While those big goals we not in and of themselves a bad thing, I wasn’t giving myself any grace to step up to them – I was simply setting the goal and expecting it to become my reality on January 1st.
Thinking you’ll change when the calendar does
Which brings us to the second issue with my resolutions – I was treating January 1st like it had magic powers. Just because the year on the calendar changes overnight, doesn’t mean I also change overnight.
And yet, I continued to approach the start of each year believing there was a magic trick that would erase my existing habits and rewrite them with the new ones.
Not identifying the why behind your goals
The third issue with my resolutions was I never bothered to think about why they were important. I talked about finding your why in the last episode.
If you don’t have your why, setting a resolution is like telling a kid to do something just because you said so. For all you parents out there – how often does that result in your kids happily getting on board?
If we don’t have a clear reason why something will bring us actual benefit, it’s really easy to push it to the bottom of our list where it languishes before eventually we give up on it.
Failing to align your goals with your unique priorities
And the final issue with my resolutions was I was setting goals that were out of alignment with what I really wanted. For instance – I wanted – and needed – more time to rest and relax. And yet, I’d set a resolution of getting 10,000 steps a day. Not only did that resolution conflict with what was truly important to me, it also requires energy I didn’t have to give.
I talked a lot about goal setting in the last episode of the podcast, if you haven’t already listened to it, it’s a great partner to this episode!
Ok, so now that we’ve talked about some of the places where we face challenges with new year’s resolutions, let’s talk about how to make them work!
Making New Year’s Resolutions Work for You!
First, January 1st doesn’t possess any magic. You can set goals and resolutions as easily on December 31st as you can on June 30th! In fact, I would argue it’s often easier to set resolutions at ANY other time of year because you’re not distracted and/or burnt out from all the holiday celebrating.
Traditionally I review the year past and set my goals for the year to come in April as part of my birthday retreat. No matter when you’re listening to this episode, it’s always a great time to take stock of where you are and set your goals to move you forward.
I know we’ve been talking all about resolutions and goals. But before we get into setting them, let’s take a little time to figure out where you are right now! Think of it like one of those maps at the mall – without the “you are here” star. If someone’s peeled off that star, it isn’t really helpful is it? If you don’t know you’re on level two near the Aunt Annie’s Pretzles, how will you even know what direction to start off in to reach the store you’re headed for?
Now would be a great time to download the worksheet for this episode. You can get it using the form below.
Reflecting on the year past
Once you’ve got your worksheet, grab a journal and a few pieces of paper as well as something to write with. If you keep a paper calendar or journal, gather that up too!
One last note before you start, make sure you’ve got a bit of time set aside for this process – this exercise could take several hours, feel free to break it into chunks or work through it all at once.
I’ve added clickable links in the worksheet to resources that will help you if you need clarity or more guidance on several of these steps.
Identifying your successes
Let’s get started with the reflection process. It’s time to list all of your successes. These are both the big things like getting a promotion or buying a new house, as well as the little wins like adding a few minutes of self-care into your routine, cooking healthy meals more than you eat out, or shredding the pile of paper that’s built up next to your desk.
This is a great place to turn to your journal or planner. I’m always amazed at how much I’ve accomplished but don’t always remember. Just like we don’t always realize how long our hair has gotten until we see a photo of ourselves from several months ago, similarly, we’re changing a little each day, and we don’t realize how much we’ve done until we reflect back on something we’ve recorded in some way in the past.
If you don’t already have a journaling habit, check out my One-Minute, Multi-Year Journal. While it only takes 60-seconds each day, this becomes a personal time capsule, letting you reflect back on your successes and notice patterns you’d like to change or bring awareness to.
Celebrating ALL your wins
Once you’ve created a list of your successes, it’s time to celebrate them!
This is an incredibly important part of the process. When you focus positive energy on all you’ve accomplished, it sets up the reward center of the brain to start looking for other wins to add to the list of things to celebrate. And that makes taking steps toward future goals a lot easier!
The key here is to pick something that feels authentically celebratory to you. If you get take out five nights a week, that probably isn’t going to feel like a special celebration. But if you rarely go out to eat, having a special meal with someone you love at your favorite restaurant might feel like a really special event.
How would you celebrate your birthday, and anniversary, or another milestone accomplishment. Those are good guidelines to help you start thinking about something that would feel authentically celebratory to you!
Setting your New Year’s Resolutions or Goals
Now it’s time to get into goal setting.
Review your list of successes. Is there anything missing from the list? Maybe it’s all about work accomplishments but you don’t have much focused on your personal life. Or maybe you’ve been longing to write a book but you don’t have any wins related to the process on your list.
If this feels overwhelming and you’re not sure where to start, check out my Wheel of Life exercise.
This process helps you identify the areas of your life that are important to you. Recognize where you’re doing well and where you might have more room to grow. And then create goals to enhance those areas of your life to bring more balance, ease, and joy into your everyday. And again, refer back to episode 2 of the podcast for a deep dive into goal setting.
Picking a theme or touchstone for your year
Once you’ve set your goals, consider taking this process one step further. Review your goals and see if there’s a theme or a word that runs through them.
I love the idea of having one word as your touchstone that you can return to whenever you feel like you might be getting off track.
My word for this past year has been spaciousness. The idea of having room to move and breathe. Both literally and figuratively. Throughout the year as I made choices and decisions about what to do (and what not to do), I took a moment to decide if it helped me move closer to the idea of spaciousness in all aspects of my life.
Little Steps to Success
Once you’ve created your general goals – at this point you can call them resolutions if you want – and perhaps identified a touchstone word, it’s time to break them down into little steps.
There’s a worksheet that goes along with Episode 2 of this podcast that will help you work through each goal and break it down into steps that set you up for success.
Once you’ve created the steps to reach your goals, assign some dates to them and add them to your calendar. Remember to gift yourself with some grace in assigning these dates and keep in mind that life happens and things come up.
I love the idea of setting three dates:
- A reasonable date – even if things come up you’ll probably be able to accomplish it by that date.
- A better date – if every things goes according to plan you can probably get it done by this date – this might be your “ideal date”.
- And a stretch date – a wow – I can’t believe I did it that quickly date.
When it comes to forming new habits, remember repetition is key. Studies suggest somewhere between three weeks and two months of consistent practice before a habit is really locked in.
Work on your goals one at a time!
Additionally, not only do you want to break your goals down into little steps, but you also want to ensure you’re not trying to implement too many goals at once. While you might set several resolutions, consider working toward them consecutively instead of concurrently.
Clearing Space to Welcome in the New
Finally, you’ll want to clear some space. In the worksheet for this episode I offer three different techniques for clearing space – physically, mentally, and energetically. Depending on your goals and what resonates with you, pick the technique or techniques that you feel drawn to.
While this might feel like it’s a little woo-woo, I really encourage you not to skip this step.
Think about it like your closet. I have a set number of hangers that fit nicely in my closet. If they’re full and I want to buy something new that needs to be hang up, I need to get rid of something else to free up a hanger. You can keep adding hangers, but eventually you won’t be able to fit any more on the bar. And your clothes will be so smushed up they’ll always be rumpled and wrinkly.
The same applies in your life. We need to let some things go to create space for new things to come in.
This could be literal – as in if you want to do 15 minutes of yoga each morning you need to get those 15 minutes from somewhere – and I’m guessing you don’t have 15 minutes where you sit and do absolutely nothing each morning right now.
And sometimes the space we need to create might be metaphorical, releasing old beliefs or thought processes to create the spaciousness to form new ones.
Releasing old goals no longer in alignment with your future path
There’s one thing that you might have noticed is conspicuously absent from this process. I didn’t ask you to look at any goals you might have set at the end of last year or start of this year.
And that was intentional, not accidental.
Here’s the thing – your goals are important. They help you take action to move forward to achieving your hopes and dreams. But the best goals are flexible, able to change as you learn and grow.
Each year I start with a number of goals that seem important and aligned with my unique priorities when I set them. However, as I learn, grow, and evolve, my path may turn in a different direction and some of those goals may no longer be on my route.
In releasing them, I’m able to create room for new goals that feel more important and pertinent to be added to my plate.
This applies to the theme for your year as well. I frequently find my theme evolves as my goals do. Perhaps to fine tune the word or maybe to shift to something different.
Being able to acknowledge and release things that are no longer part of our journey is so valuable. Forcing yourself to finish something simply because you started it – without regard for the value it may or may not actually have in your life NOW – is a great way to set yourself up for burnout.
So as you conduct your year end practice, give yourself grace on goals from last year that you didn’t achieve. Don’t automatically add them to your list of goals for 2023. Check in and see if that goal is still a part of your journey, or if you took a turn at some point and left that goal down a different path.
When you realize the goals you’ve set in the past, or the goals you set this year, are no longer part of your journey, give yourself the grace to release them. Cross them off your to-do list, and replace them with something that’s more aligned with your new direction.
Ready to get started?
When I conduct this process I do it over a period of a few days. It takes not only time, but also mental and emotional energy to work through each of these steps. Make sure to give yourself the grace of completing this process at your own pace.
Remember there’s no magic in the changing of the calendar, and if you finish your year-end celebration and review on January 1st, February 1st, or June 13th the most important thing is you took the time to pick the right goals for you and create a process that sets you up for success in reaching them!
If you find yourself struggling on one or more of these steps I’d love to help! You can schedule a no-cost Discovery Session with me. This one-hour session will give us the time to begin to explore the tools, techniques, and resources that will be of most benefit to you, and jump start your journey to building your best life.
I’d love to hear about your year end review! Comment below and let me know what you’re celebrating and the goals you’re setting for next year. Knowing what you’re working on gives me the insight to provide resources to help you reach those goals!
And remember – living your best life isn’t about changing your life – it’s about changing the way you show up for your life! I’m sending you a great big hug – you’ve got this!
Show Notes
Additional Resources
Episode #2 – Goal Setting Deep Dive
Get the One-Minute Multi-Year Journal.
Schedule a no-cost Discovery Session with me.
Submit your question to be featured on a future episode.
[…] great place to start is listening to Episode #3 of my podcast Solicited Advice to Live Your Best Life where I talk about what goes into creating […]
[…] where you fall on this spectrum, if you need help creating or reviewing your goals, check out Episode 3 of Solicited Advice to Live Your Best Life. We did a deep dive into goal setting and there’s an awesome companion worksheet for that […]