Happy 2019 everyone! I feel like every year that I get older the time flies by so much faster! It’s crazy!
How many of you make New Year’s Resolutions but forget about them or they become “not that important” as time goes on and the magic of a new year wears off? It’s estimated that 40% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions but only 8% achieve their New Year’s goals. And to be honest, I rarely ever make New Year’s Resolutions because I don’t believe you need a “new year” in order to obtain any goals. If you want it bad enough, you’ll make time to achieve what that goal or project is.
You all know I’m a huge fan of budgeting so I often have ongoing financial goals; however, in addition this year I’ve decided to set some additional personal goals as well. Last week I made a vision board in prep for my January Budget Challenge (P.S. it’s not too late to join if getting your finances in order in 2019 is on your list!) and I’m super pumped about it (stay tuned for a tutorial on how to make a vision board and I’ll be sharing mine as well 🙂 ). However, some goals can seem so daunting or we get “too ambitious” in the beginning that we can’t ride out the rest of the year on the same energy level.
Do you have a ton of big ideas for 2019? Have you successfully knocked out a list full of New Year’s Resolutions in the past!?!? Good for you! For the rest of us who might need some help…here are a few tips.
- Think of all the goals you can possibly imagine you might want to tackle this year. Anything and everything related to self, relationships, career, etc.
- Next you need to “prune the extra”. The secret to keeping plants healthy and strong is to prune them. The same goes for goals. Like I said before, sometimes we can get so ambitious and it’s hard to keep the initial energy we had for our goals up all year in order to complete them all. But if we focus on the critical few that have the greatest reward, we will do great!
- Here are 3 questions to ask yourself in regards to each goal that can help you determine what is a critical goal with a great reward:
- What is the payoff for hitting your goal or completing your project?
- How will this goal or project benefit others in your life (your spouse, kids, extended family, friends, community, etc.)?
- Who will you need to be in order to make this goal or project a reality? For example, do you need to have a dedicated amount of time or do you need experience a mindset shift in order to accomplish that goal, etc.?
These questions should help you get more clear on your goals and help you prioritize them. There may be a few you actually need to complete in order to go on and check off others on your list. Pick just a few as you can ALWAYS come back and add more from your first list. Don’t worry about only having a few small goals on your list. You don’t need to have a “set” number to complete in any given year. Some goals are going to be way more time consuming and need a lot of ambition while there are others that are much smaller and take little time to accomplish.
