“What are your 2023 New Year’s resolutions?”
A New Year marks a blank slate. This fresh effect has us dreaming big!
“I will definitely exercise five times a week this year so I can lose my holiday weight, plus some more! This is the year!”
Often these rapidly adopted goals drop off just as fast. January comes to an end, the gym membership continues to collect dust. Now you feel like the ship has sailed, and you’re left feeling defeated. The year has only just begun!
Sound familiar?
So the question is, is this mentality powerful or pointless?
The Power of New Year’s Resolutions
The New Year marks a blank slate that inspires a lot of fresh energy that can manifest as:
- Intention
- Clarity
- Motivation
- Inspiration
- Engagement
- Hope
These create a powerful cocktail for embarking on our New Year’s resolution journey.
The Problem with New Year’s Resolutions
On paper, New Year’s resolutions allow us to sprint in a pre-determined direction.
But uh oh…We actually signed up for a marathon, not the 100m sprint…
This surge of inspiration often causes us to bite off more than we can chew. Imagine getting your entire salary paid on one day. It’s irresistible to dream big, isn’t it?
Often, we are focused on our glorified and ambitious goal, and fail to see the bigger picture. But, the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles. Whether it be motivation, resources, or circumstance.
So here is the issue: we set ourselves immense goals, but little framework or tools to get us there, and this inherently sets us up for failure.
We often feel like giving ourselves an entire year to achieve the BIG goal. So we dismiss it, and say, we still have the rest of the year, I’ll start later. This gives us so much room for procrastination, and motivation laced with false-hope.
Powerful or Pointless?
Moral of the story, new year’s resolutions are extremely powerful and beneficial self-success tools, if done correctly!
It’s important to leverage the new-year-new-me motivation, but make achievable goals to ride the wave.
Creating large and unobtainable goals with limited posts along the way will only set ourselves up for failure, and we start the year off feeling defeated. Not what you want, is it?
So how can we get the most out of this ‘New Year, New Me’ mentality?
#1 – Set monthly goals and checkpoints
The year-to-year cycle is a great benchmark of progress, but a year is also a very long time. Don’t forget, a year is 12 months. Beat the sense of a year long slog, by breaking up your final goal up by months. It creates a mini sense of success with mini check points.
#2 – Celebrate EVERY win
Focus on what you’re achieving as a journey, don’t just attribute success to achieving your big goal!
#3 – Failure is not final
Sometimes, failure is inevitable. We get sick, so we can’t exercise. We have a birthday celebration, so we eat that cake. But it doesn’t mean our goal dissipates out of reach, and is only obtainable again next year. Be kind to yourself, AND be disciplined.
#4 – Changes can happen ANYTIME in the year
January officially marks a new calendar year, but who’s stopping you from ‘New Year, New Me September’? While the new year brings great societal pressure, postponing any spontaneous inspiration to improve yourself to the next year limits your growth and resolution mindset.
#5 – Don’t overthink, just DO!
Anlaysis paralysis is a real thing, and overthinking a decision can really hold you back from achieving your goals. Sometimes, we just need to take the LEAP and just DO it!
