With the end of the year fast approaching, now’s the time many people start thinking about making resolutions, things we want to make manifest in the new cycle, things we want to see eliminated from our lives.

Yet how successful are we with our resolutions?

For most of us, we’re lucky if we stick with our resolutions until the end of January, promising ourselves we’ll do better next year. Unfortunately, when we break a promise to ourselves, we break trust with ourselves, which creates an attitude of ‘I’ll never be able to fulfil commitments to myself, so why bother?’ and so the downwards cycle continues.

This year, why not try something different?

Set yourself up to succeed

Instead of resolutions, set yourself goals. These could be as small or as big as you like, anything from spending more time with your family to setting up a profitable business.

Now break that goal down into little steps. The key thing here is to make them achievable, things you know you absolutely definitely can make happen. If you want to have more family bonding time, don’t make grandiose plans of big, expensive day trips you know you won’t follow through on. Decide you’ll go to the park, do a jigsaw puzzle, or some colouring together. There’s nothing to stop you planning day trips if that’s what you prefer, but you should only do this if you know for certain you can make it happen.

Likewise, if you want to make a specific amount of money, first break it down into how much you’ll need per month, then per week. Then decide exactly what you’re going to do to achieve that income. If you’re setting up a new business, it might be that you won’t make any money for the first few months, so factor that into your calculations. Again, the point is to make your targets something you know you can realistically achieve. It’s better to underestimate than overpromise.

Stay focused

Once you’ve set your goals, you need to keep yourself on track. I like to review my progress on a daily and weekly basis.

Every day, take a moment to think about where you’re at and where you want to be by the time you go to bed. Journalling is a fantastic way to do this.

I like to start with a brief summary of the day before, just a couple of sentences. I note down my biggest win from yesterday and then decide on what I’m going to do today to move closer to my goals. Finally, I end with a gratitude, something I’m thankful for, to help me stay in a positive mindset and remind me why I’m doing this.

Once a week, I examine all my goals and see where I’ve moved forward and which goals I’ve neglected. This helps me prioritise my next steps and see which goals need more attention.

2019 – My best year ever?

This year was the first time I started the goal setting process and it’s made a huge difference in my life. I set ten goals and have achieved five of them. A couple of the others are also on target to be completed by December 31.

This still means there are some goals I won’t meet, but that’s okay. Not only have I learned a lot from why it is I haven’t completed them, I’ve also discovered a great deal about my motives and priorities and what works for me. Some goals changed over the course of the year as I discovered that they weren’t what I actually needed to achieve, so I changed them to reflect what I needed to make happen.

Goals take you to all sorts of amazing places

As a result of all my goals, 2019 has been pretty darned incredible and those goals have taken my life in unexpected directions. For example, I wanted to get involved with music again, having stopped performing live when I had children. It’s been about fifteen years since I’ve been on stage since a guitar, so I set myself a goal of doing one open mic per quarter.

The first quarter came and went and although I’d found out about a couple of local open mics, I hadn’t been brave enough to go to any.

Then I was at a gig with my dance troupe and I got talking to the venue owner. I asked him whether they had an open mic event and when I discovered they didn’t, offered to set one up.

I had no idea when I set that goal that the open mics I’d attend would be my own!

What’s more, at my first event, I got talking to another musician, who ended up inviting me to join his band. Now I’m playing bass for the first time in over twenty years, with thoroughly decent people singing original material written by an incredibly talented songwriter. Not only have I done more than four open mics, I’ve done a few festivals and charity events and even performed at an album launch.

All that from one little goal.

In addition, I’ve been on my first holiday in over 16 years, lost weight, joined a gym with the most wonderfully relaxing pool where I spend my day off, and made some incredible new friends who’ll be with me for life.

This is what goals can do for you!

What do you think? Do you set resolutions or do you think you’ll try goal setting? What do you want to see happen in 2020? Let us know all about it in the comments.