New Year's Resolutions

There is a tradition of setting New Year's resolutions in North America. I don't think that it is very common in other areas of the world, so I would like to share my opinions about it.

The traditional concept of a New Year's resolution is that on Jan 1st every year, a person will think of things that they wish to change about themselves and their conditions in the coming year. The problem is that most of the time, that wish stays just a wish. In never comes through. The person making the wish does not do anything, or very little, about the wish. Then, at the end of the year they wonder why nothing has changed!

Carla and I do New Year's resolutions a bit differently. First, we don't call them New Year's resolutions. January 1st is just a convenient date to set goal. You could just as well pick March 13 or September 19, and it would make no difference. Second, we don't make a wish. Instead, we make a goal and a plan to make that goal come true. A wish is a desire for something to happen in the future, with no plan on how to get to the desired outcome. A goal is a well defined outcome with the details of the outcome descibed very clearly (having a lot of money is not a clearly defined goal). Then, there needs to be a plan of action and a timeline to realize this goal.

Every year (and throughout the year) we take a look at our list of goals, check against the plans and adjust our actions. This way of setting goals WORKS! It is kind of freaky to look at our list of past goals, because we have achieved them all! We usually set short term and long term goals. Some things take longer than a year to make happen, so don't be afraid to plan 5 or 10 years in advance. At the same time, you need short term goals to feel the satisfaction of accomplishing your goals throughout the year. If all your goals are 5 or 10 years away, it will be very easy to get tired, discouraged and stop working towards your goals. You could also split your long term goals into stages, to make the goal seem not so daunting.

It is ok to change your mind and change your goals. People change, situations change and priorities change. Set 6 month goal review sessions, and check against progress towards goals every month and see if that is frequent enough for you. Then, adjust as necessary.

Understand this. Life will happen. A year will pass, then 5 more, then 20 more. That is pretty much guaranteed. What happens in those years is up to you. You can be healthy, you can be slim, you can be strong, you can be wealthy, you can be powerful. Your story has not been written yet. Why not choose NOW what your story will be?