I have never been the type to do “New Year’s Resolutions.” I don’t for a minute believe that once the new year clicks over, I will suddenly be a different person and do everything on my “list.” I know for me {and probably many others}, the things I would put on a new year’s resolution list are habits I want to break, habits I’ve been doing for years. To think you can break a long-time habit in the first month of the year is just setting yourself up for failure. I wish it were as easy as clicking over to the new year to eat healthier, exercise more, and focus more on what I’d like to do.
I do, however, believe in having goals and things I would like to achieve throughout the whole year {not just for the first month}. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have worked on goals in previous years as well . . . and not much resulted from that either.
I went through and read all of my goals for 2015, 2017, and 2018, and I thought to myself, “Losing weight has been on my goal list for 4 years now, and not only have I not lost weight, I’ve gained!” As I went through and read all of my previous years’ goals, there were several I had accomplished over the past 4 years, but there were so many more I had not even attempted – like eating healthier. And then I realized exactly why most of these goals did not get accomplished. As soon as I finished typing them out, they were out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I never looked at them again throughout the year. I mean, common sense says to review your goals regularly, make adjustments, come up with new ideas to achieve them if what you’re doing isn’t working, and try again. Not me. I typed them up in a Word document and then forgot about them. 🙁
I won’t make that same mistake for 2019. I will be reviewing my goals on a weekly basis to remind myself of the things I would like to accomplish and to make sure I am doing things to work towards those accomplishments.
2018 wasn’t the best year of my life {by no means was it the worst either}. To sum it up in once sentence: I feel like I have run myself to death, and I don’t really have anything to show for it. Blah. I think we’ve all been there at some point. I feel like I stumbled through the year, not really controlling what I did, what I accomplished, or what I could have done. Ironically, I am the only one who can control it. Realistically, while I try to place the blame elsewhere, I am the one responsible for what I do and don’t do. Knowledge is power, right? I hope so because 2019 needs to be different for me. Otherwise, I might have an early mid-life crisis. 😆
Truthfully, my biggest challenge for 2019 will be accepting the fact that I simply do not have enough time to do everything I want to do. My second biggest challenge will be realizing this is okay and is not something I should stress myself out with. In the past, goal-setting was a bit overwhelming for me. There are just too many things I want to do. I mean, the list is long {you have no idea!}. 😯 And once I get overwhelmed, I usually abandon the entire project. That certainly doesn’t get anything accomplished.
To change things up for my goal-setting for this year, I made a general list of the main topics of goals I want to achieve, and then I put my 2019 priorities in order from 1 to 10, with 1 being “Eat Healthier” and 10 being “Work through My 2019 To-Do List.” I intend to get this priority list printed and placed inside a 4×6 photo frame that I will keep on my desk as a reminder of my priorities/goals and the order in which I need to focus on them. I am notorious for getting sidetracked, so the plan is to have what I need to focus on right in front of me. Also, with each priority, such as eating healthier, I have a Word document that has a few specific goals I would like to accomplish by the end of the year {not the end of January}. I didn’t go crazy with the more specific goals, but I did put something specific down for each main priority. I will print out all of my goals I want to achieve for each “main topic,” and these are the things I will review weekly to make sure I am putting forth the effort to work towards those goals. They will not be out-of-site, out-of-mind this year.
Last year’s lack of productivity and positive results, as well as the time I’ve wasted, have sparked my motivation for this year. I am determine to make this my most productive year yet! I did a lot of talking throughout last year about what I needed to do. This year will be the year I do it! At the end of the year, as I am reviewing the goals I wanted to accomplish, I am looking forward to crossing a lot of them off my list and expanding with more specific goals for 2020.