9 Practical Tips to Stick To your New Year's Goals - Definitely(ish) - Creative Copywriting and Content Management

Welcome New Year! I know this year might be coming as a relief to many people, and with the start of a new year, it’s time for New Year’s resolutions! While resolutions might be fun and easy to make, they have an unfortunate reputation of fizzling out by the end of January.

This is why I prefer to make New Year’s goals rather than resolutions. Here’s why:

Goals have a more concrete beginning, middle, and end. Goals help give you a clear direction towards making change. Resolutions often translate to a rapid change in habits and behavior. While rapid changes aren’t bad, resolutions often ignore the very reason that you’re making a change in the first place. Say your resolution is to work out more often; you’ll have a much harder time sticking to that resolution if you don’t specify the why. If you set a goal to be able to run a marathon this year, working out more often will come easily.

So with that being said, how can you make sure your goals happen by the end of the year? Here are 9 practical tips that will help you stick to those New Year’s Goals!

1. Don’t Choose Too Many Goals

This might seem a little obvious, but don’t set so many goals that you get overwhelmed! People tend to overestimate what can be done in a year, and underestimate what can be done in a decade. You don’t have to do it all in one year! Think about how much time you actually have to devote to your goals, and how much needs to be done in a year.

It’s exciting to set goals! It gives you a rush for sure, but don’t get swept up in the excitement and so many goals that you don’t have time to pursue them. Be critical about the time you actually have. It’s better to accomplish 2-3 than set 10 and only achieve 1-2.

2. Don’t Set Goals You Aren’t Passionate about

There should definitely be passion in pursuing your goals! Don’t just set a goal because everyone else is pursuing a similar goal. Let’s take fitness as an example: say your closest friends say they want to get in shape this year, so you decide to set that goal as well. If you aren’t excited about this goal, you’re not going to go to the gym! Many people would say getting in shape is an admirable goal, but it’s completely optional! It won’t bring you any joy to pursue that goal if you weren’t excited about it in the first place. You won’t have the drive it takes to complete it if you’re not passionate about it.

3. Make Your Goals Measurable

Going with this fitness example, “getting in shape” isn’t an ideal way to phrase your New Year’s Goal. How will you know when you’ve hit that goal? If your goal is to “make more money” how will you know when you’ve reached “more”? Making sure your goals are measurable is an essential step in making them reality. Having measurable goals is the only way you’ll be able to tell if you’re making progress.

Making your goals measurable is part of making them SPECIFIC. The more specific you can be about your goals the easier time your brain will have in achieving them. Here are some examples of measurable goals:

Run a 7 minute mile
Pay off $10k in debt
Increase business revenue by $20k
Lose 15 lbs
Have dinner with family once a week

Now this doesn’t mean you should avoid goals that aren’t obviously measurable. It’s not wrong to set a goal to “be a better manager” or “find more joy”. You just want to come up with a game-plan on how you’re going to be measuring these things. Otherwise, you’ll reach the end of the year and only be able to focus on all the times you didn’t feel like you were moving towards your goal.

4. Take the First Action Step Early

An object in motion stays in motion. So get used to staying in motion now! This early momentum is SO beneficial in setting the tone for how you will be pursuing your goals this year. You’ll be much more likely to pursue your New Year’s Goals with vigor if you have the first action step or two under your belt already.

Human beings love evidence. Your brain loves to see that it’s possible to do things based on what you’ve already done. It happens all the time: you’re much more likely to workout when you go put your shoes on. Think of this first action step as putting on your shoes. It’s moving from inactive, to actively pursuing your goals.

5. Break Down The Steps You Need To Take

Break down your goals into as many specific action steps as you can. Skipping this step may cause you to underestimate just how often you have to take action on you goals. This will help you realize gaps in your education or training if needed. It will help you anticipate things that could go wrong in advance. You’ll then have an action plan for dealing with anything and everything.

6. Put The Steps on your Calendar Now

Break down the actions steps in your New Year’s Goals weekly, monthly, or quarterly; but put the action steps on your calendar. It’s really as simple as that! Then you just have to show up. Think of these items on your calendar as appointments you’re making. Sure you can change them if you need to, but you don’t just bail on your appointments for no reason! You would show up for an appointment you’ve made with someone else, so why not show up for yourself?

7. Allow For flexibility

Listen, things will go wrong. In fact, you should expect to have road bumps on the way to your goals! Expect them, and PLAN for them. (You can add your game plan for road bumps on to your action list.) Things going wrong is nothing to get discouraged about. Nothing should shake you from chasing your goals when you expect to encounter problems and just deal with them accordingly. Everyone encounters obstacles on the way to their goals, but the ones who make it through don’t make the obstacles mean anything. I like the term failing forward. 😀

8. Master Your Mindset

Pursuing your New Year’s Goals has to be fun! You have to mostly be doing them because they are fun! If you chase your goals from the mindset of you have to reach these goals or you’re essentially a failure, you won’t have fun pursuing your goals. Additionally, you won’t be happy once you reach your goals. Unless you learn to be content and happy about your life now, the completion of your goals will not bring you the satisfaction you think they will.

An important way that I implement this for myself is by having gratitude for my current life situation. Sure there are some changes I want to make in my life, but there was a time when I wanted exactly what I have right now. The same is true for you, learn to enjoy it!

9. Regularly Evaluate YOur Progress

This year, I will be evaluating my goals at the end of every month. I would recommend making an appointment with yourself monthly or quarterly to see what worked, what didn’t, and how you will proceed moving forward. You can schedule all these check in times at the beginning of the year to keep yourself accountable. I’ve never done these appointments before, but it’s something my life coach suggested. I fully expect it to be a game changer!

By the way, this is the first year I won’t be using a paper planner. We are going all digital baby! I just find it so much easier to make adjustments and have it sync across all my devices at once.

What New Year’s Goals do you have and how are you planning on accomplishing them? Let me know! I love talking about goals!

Here are some more practical posts that can help you with different type of goals:

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