— How to actually achieve your New Year’s Resolutions —
The first day of a new year is always my most productive. It doesn’t matter if I am sick to the stomach, or if a tornado comes out of nowhere and blows my house away: January 1st is going to be great, guaranteed.
Why? Because of new beginnings, and a hope that 2017 will be the year that I figure life out. The year that I actually accomplish the goals I’ve had for the last three years, but have never gotten to.
And so January 1st is perfect. January 1st is impactful. The question is: what makes it so different from February 1st? After all, they are both the start of a new month. In fact, what’s the difference between January 1st and January 2nd? The two are identical, besides the mindset that surrounds them.
So no matter what day you are reading this, I challenge you to a new start. Because while January 1st will always be wonderful, you should never feel like you have to wait until next year to begin again.
However, mindset can only take you so far. Maybe you can be more productive in a general sense with this advice, but if you want to accomplish a big project, like writing a novel, you have to be organized. You can say that you want to write every day, but what does that actually mean?
Instead, try to figure out exactly what needs to happen in order to achieve your goal. My parents call these ‘objectives.’ If your goal is the destination, your objectives are the stepping stones. A typical novel is 50,000 words, depending on the genre, so if you plan on making the first draft in 3 months, that means around 560 words per day.
This way, you have more of a sense of progress on a daily level. You break down a huge project into bite sized chunks, so it is less intimidating. If you miss a day you can simply divide that 560 and add it to the next couple of days, until voila, you are back on track, and don’t have to feel bad about it.
But what if you didn’t have a set word count to reach, and you missed a day? You are much more likely to miss another day, because what does it really matter in the whole of things? The only consequence is at the end of the year, when you realize that you’ve gone yet another 365 days without even coming close to accomplishing your dream.
To summarize, don’t put your faith in 2017 being an easier year than 2016. Instead, focus on your goals, and what steps you need to take to achieve them. Because 365 days is simply the amount of time it takes for the earth to go in a circle around the sun, and thus not really relevant to the great things you are going to acomplish.
Here is the daily organizer I made for myself. What’s special is the three boxes to the right. These are where I write down the details of my daily objectives; one for exercise, one for violin, and one for writing. On the left I have nutrition details, where I check off eight glasses of water, and write down what I eat. In the notes I put a short synopsis of the day, or quotes that I want to remember. Isn’t it great?
