Why resolutions can easily become a thing of the past
Two weeks ago you said, “New Year, New Me” and today you are looking at your goals thinking I still have the rest of the year in front of me.
New Year's resolutions - it’s almost hard to justify whether it’s a tradition or rather a chore that you have to complete within the year. We understand completing your goals as being disciplined and that you achieved what you set out to do. Pushing it off puts you in the procrastinator bracket where there is no reward only short-term memory loss of the goals you set out to achieve.
The question then becomes, why do we still write down our goals come January 1st of every year?
Is it because everyone else is doing it? or is it because this is the year that you are going to change things!
Whatever the reason being, I believe we often tend to set ourselves up for failure when it comes to these goals. Now don’t get me wrong, there are people out there that have a process, a plan, a way of making sure they are able to achieve these set goals. But then there are also people like me, who have every intention of achieving their targets but forget only to remember them again in December.
So why is that it seems like some folks have a great sense of drive why others tend to forget?
For starters, it has nothing to do with one’s ability to be able to complete a task or the willingness to do it, but rather the motivation behind it all.
This past weekend, I had met up with a few of my girlfriends and the topic of New Year’s resolution came up. Naturally, we all pulled out our mental lists and starting saying our, “this is the year I” or “this is the year of”, or “this year I want to”…
When it was my turn, I started naming off a few items off of my 19 for 2019 list. Some of which included:
- Being able to do a handstand,
- Writing 24 blogs this year,
- Being able to lead two creative projects at work,
- Trying 12 different recipes,
- Traveling to Australia and New Zealand
and more!
I’ll be honest, up until a few days ago, my only contribution to this list was what exactly did I want to accomplish. I hadn’t quite gotten to the HOW I’ll get there but it was on the radar. I mean coming up with 19 items already took me some time. I needed another week until I could figure out how I would accomplish these goals.
Some might say those are a lot of goals you hope to accomplish. Some might even look at my list and say, traveling to Australia? trying 12 different recipes? aren’t really goals.
As the conversation went on, this question around what defines a goal came up. After some time, we mutually agreed that what I might consider or define as a goal might be different than your definition, and to be honest, that’s okay!
But the real meat of the conversation was around WHY those goals? As the conversation progressed, it made me realize it’s never been about whether you think you can accomplish a goal or not, but rather WHY do you want to accomplish it?
How did these particular goals manage to make it on THE LIST? Why now?
The more I got to thinking, the more motivated I got. This conversation had helped me realized that one of the significant parts of goal setting if understand the reasons behind why you want to make it a goal in the first place. This reasoning helps us put things into perspective.
Like many others, I’ve always found it easy to establish goals, but harder to achieve them. By taking time aside to identify the motivation behind each has not only narrowed my list down but provided more meaning to these goals.
Here’s me getting a head start on these reasons:
- I’d like to be able to do a handstand because my fitness progress has allowed me to progress to a point where I can challenge myself (especially my shoulders and core strength).
- I want to write 24 blogs this year (12 personal and 12 marketing focused) because not only do they help me improve my writing, but they help me establish a tone and allow me to express my thoughts in a digital format.
- I want to lead two creative projects because I want to be able to merge this line between brand and product to create more meaningful experiences.
- I want to try 12 new recipes because apart from loving food, cooking, and the food network, it introduces me to new flavours and art that excites me every time I’m in the kitchen.
- I want to travel to Australia and New Zealand to experience a new culture, new hemisphere and visit my dear friends who now live there :)
and I encourage you to do the same.
