New Year = New Me. Sound familiar? It’s the beginning of the year and everyone has the same thing on their mind. What will my New Year’s Resolution(s) be? For most, it will be to get healthy, or drop unwanted body fat. Others it might be to progress in a career or start a business.
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I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. The goals I had last year, are similar to what I wanted to accomplish last year. My life is about making myself better and growing along the way. I will always be on a healthy lifestyle and fitness journey. I will always want to grow my blog/business and help others along the way. And, I will always want to continue my personal growth and development.
Whatever your goals are, there are two things that are certain. One, you have to have a clear plan with well written goals, and two, change and success do not happen overnight and take time. It is estimated that 92% of people fail at their New Year’s resolutions. Don’t let yourself become part of this statistic. This year, let’s not make a resolution. Let’s make some goals and a plan to accomplish those goals. It all starts with a plan, and here are my tips to help.
Tip #1
First, assess the key areas of your life. More will come on this, but the major areas are: physical health, mental well being, environment/surroundings, hobbies/joy/restoration, romance, friends/family, finances, purpose or career, spirituality, and personal growth. You have to know in what areas you are lacking in before you can design a plan to grow.
After rating these categories, based on how they are RIGHT NOW, you look for the lowest score to focus on. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it is your most important area of your life, it just simply means it’s the area that you want to focus your growth on.
Tip #2
Write down your goals. If you don’t write them down, how do you know if you have a clear idea of what you truly want to accomplish? These goals must be SMART Goals. (Have you signed up for my e-mail list to get access to downloading my SMART Goals Template?! I outline exactly what a SMART Goal is and how to write one.)
You should put your goals somewhere that you will see every single day. I keep mine in my bullet journal. I use it everyday and at least once a week, take a look back at what my goals are and what I need to do to accomplish those goals.
Tip #3
After writing down your goals, brainstorm a list of tasks that will help you reach those goals. What accountability do you need? What do you need to learn? What habits do you need to create? Anything that comes to your mind should go on that list. And, keep this list handy as well. More tasks might come to you throughout your day. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than crossing things off of my to-do list. I actually do get joy from being productive.
Those are my 3 major tips for starting the new year out strong and staying strong as the year progresses. I would love to know what you think about them. Do you have any questions or comments? E-mail me, for find me on my social media! (Contact information is below)
How did I start the year?
Yesterday, I spent a good 3 or 4 hours setting up my bullet journal for the new year. In previous posts, I have talked about my use of a bullet journal and a Smart Life Push Journal. I have decided to combine the two journals into my bullet journal style. Chalene Johnson created such a great process for creating and crushing goals in her Smart Life Push Journal and Push Goal process. Check out her website for more information. But, I love the creative side of bullet journaling and is an outlet for myself.
SO!
This year, I am going assess my key areas of life every 90 days, create 90 day goals and a push goal. Additionally, I will take a personal inventory every 30 days and create 10 goals for those 30 days. They will be with me everyday and everywhere I go so I can stay on top of them. I started this process last year, bouncing between the two journals and managed to accomplish a lot of things. I am excited to see where I am at this time next year with combining the two methods.
I have so many big goals and I am excited to get started on them. As always, below are my top five goals that I will be crushing this month. Have you written your goals yet?
My Top 5 Goals for January 2018
- Create an ebook to publish and sell on my blog to help others crush their goals.
- Increase my social media following by posting at least one time per day.
- Continue to post at least one blog every week and “go live” on IG and/or FB at least 4 times.
- Create a budget to pay off debt and save money.
- Lose 6 more pounds by eating a plant-based diet and moving/exercising every day.
I am not writing these goals with my best SMART goals technique for the world. But, trust me, I do have them written in my bullet journal as SMART goals. The goals are specific and have a measure of what is to be accomplished to know when I have completed these goals. I also know that I am able to reach these goals and they are attainable and realistic for what I am striving for.
Some of my other goals include creating new habits that will help me grow personally, and/or be more productive and intentional with my time. Like I mentioned before, I have big goals for myself and these habits will help me work toward achieving these goals. I have decided on two words that will help shape my year. They are persistence and consistency. Nothing will be achieved overnight, but with persistence and consistency, I know I will crush it. Hard work and determination are all that you need to reach your goals.
I hope these tips and seeing my goals help you to create your own. Remember, no two people should or would have the same goals, but if mine can spark an idea for you, then I am all about it. I am here to help. As always, leave me some feedback either here, below this post, e-mail me (megs@thewheellifeblog.com), or on any of my social media platforms! (FB/IG/TW @wheellifeblog and Snapchat @megsh8). I would love to hear from you and what I can do to help.
Let’s Grow and Grind!
Megs