Living Up to New Year Expectations
As the clock strikes forward, we look up and realize that it is just about 2022. Every year millions of individuals set their sights on what will be different in the year to come, their dreams, goals, aiming that it is this very new year that will be the change in their lives. Unfortunately, as the days begin to pass into January, then February somehow, we begin to back track on changes we encouraged ourselves to make to achieve these goals: whether one’s particular goals are to stop smoking, go to the gym, eat healthy, save more money, etc. It’s ironic that suddenly by the time we march into spring many of these objectives become lost. I recently decided to bring to you 5 Key Points in keeping New Year expectations, which are listed below:
Understanding Your Why. It’s important to ask yourself, and also reflect on why you chose a particular objective/goal/ resolution to change in your life, and how this is going for you so far. A question to ask yourself is how you picture yourself keeping the change, what it looks like, how would maintaining this change make you feel, and what this new change actually means to you and to your future. Go ahead, put it on paper.
Commitment: consider the word commitment on multiple fronts. Have you committed to the objective? Have you committed to endure the obstacles that you will face? It can also entail devotion of time and energy when things do not appear to be going your way. You dig your feet in the ground and tell yourself. “I’m not wavering, I’m sticking with this through and through”. Understanding your Why makes your commitment all the stronger.
Setting Realistic Goals. It’s important that whatever you choose to work on this upcoming year that you are being honest with yourself. First, consider whether these goals are realistic. Next consider the effort you are willing to put in to obtain the goals and…being honest with yourself with this as well. You can ask yourself questions like, will I push myself to put this effort in, or will I quit when things get hard? Setting realistic goals are not only about the end game, and what you are trying to accomplish, it’s also about being realistic about the time, energy, effort, willingness and love for yourself knowing that you have to bring all these things together like a recipe to make it work. Thus, to say, it’s a combination of both the end product, and being genuine with yourself. Are you truly ready to give what it takes?
Discipline: Discipline goes hand in hand with commitment. Many times, doing the same mundane things day in day out becomes boring, it becomes easy for us to give in and tell ourselves, it’s ok to miss a day/skip a day. Suddenly a day turns into 2,3, 5, then you look up and 10 days have passed and quickly we find ourselves off track and have gone off course and its hardly into the month of February. Understand that discipline is about making sacrifices. Sometimes just mixing your routing up while still being disciplined will keep you motivated.
Plan of Action. POA or Plan of Action aligns with realistic goals. Have you ever heard of its not true, or it didn’t happen if it wasn’t written on paper? Same is true with goals/objectives/ resolutions. Writing them down gives you a visual vantage point, an outline. Consider it like a GPS, it gives directions to your destination. The key to this is that somewhere along the way if you get lost, your POA is there to help you get back on track. Nowadays the majority of the world uses a navigational system on their phones or in their cars, why not use one for your life? It’s time to write a plan. If all gets lost…revisit #1.