It’s that time of year, everyone making plans and starting afresh in the spirit of the new year, personally I love nothing more than a fresh start. New year, a new term, new job whatever it is for me it means new opportunities and an excuse to crack out some stationary or a new planner and make some good old fashioned resolutions. I’ve gotten in the habit of writing my resolutions first thing in the morning on New Year’s day, never more than 5 and I try not to overthink them, whatever is important enough for me to remember at that moment in time is what my resolutions will be. This time of year we’re all bombarded with articles on what our resolutions should be and personally I find that the only way I actually stick to mine is to make them completely personal to me and to get specific. So to cut through all the rubbish that’s circulating online about making 2018 “your year” as dictated to us by journalists, here are my thoughts on making meaningful resolutions that work for you.
1. Prioritise Impact
Thinking about what you want to achieve, think about what is going to make the biggest impact on your life and what changes you want to make to feel like you’ve achieved something. Are you looking to be healthier? and is switching from dairy to soy milk going to make enough of an impact to feel like you’re actually healthier? Last year I said I wanted to read 12 books, one a month, and although I didn’t make that total I’m not exactly sure why I set that as a goal and what impact I was hoping to achieve by doing that? Goals have to mean something otherwise you’ll get absolutely nothing out of achieving them. Something I’m planning to focus on this year is nurturing my relationships, not just romantic but my relationships with my family, friends, colleagues, clients, anyone who helps me and has a part in my life. During the latter part of 2017, I feel like I let the ball slip a bit with some people and
2. Less is more
The boyfriend and I were talking about the 2017 and we asked each other, what’s 3 things from 2017 you want to do less of in 2018 and 3 things from 2017 you want to do more of. It got me thinking that actually sometimes doing less of something can have just as much of an impact as starting up something new. For instance, last year I wanted to stop getting coffee out as much, the impact of this is that I’d save money but it also meant I learnt more about making a decent cuppa at home. I started with just aiming to stop buying coffee out for a month and then it just became a habit of making my morning coffee before I leave. Small switches to make could be walking to work instead of getting the bus, you’d get extra exercise, some morning thinking time and save money on transport, or instead of just going to the shops for a wander maybe try going to a local park or museum, small changes can make a bigger impact than we realise.
3. Baby steps
Like I said with kicking my expensive coffee habit, breaking things down makes goals so much more achievable. A resolution doesn’t have to be completely life-changing, things like “learn to make fish pie” or “try a tap class” can be just as much of a resolution as “I want to run more”. I saw something on Pinterest about setting a goal for each month of the year, having different focuses for each month of the year means you’ll not only set new habits each month, but it gives you more chance of succeeding by focusing on one specific task, like fitness in January or reading in August, giving back in December.
4. Make it personal
This is the most important part of setting resolutions, there’s absolutely no point in setting goals that magazines tell you or copying what your friends are doing because if it doesn’t mean anything to you-you won’t want to work for them. Every January seems everyone on some kind of diet or fitness kick, something I’ve learnt in the last year or two is that if you didn’t want or need to diet before Christmas, a few weeks of indulgence isn’t going to change your body forever. Odds are you’ll have gained some weight over Christmas, but as soon as normality and routine sets back-in in January that’ll fall right off and your body will go back to normal. Just because the world is dieting doesn’t mean you need to. That applies to most things, if it doesn’t work for you don’t force it. Find your rhythm.
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