Every year, people around the world will make a resolution to be a better, more hopeful version of themselves. The problem is it doesn’t usually go past a resolution. They try a couple of times, but without an actual plan, they never make it past the end of the month.
Jesus warns us in Luke 14:28-30:
“But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’
Now, Jesus was talking about being his disciple, but this truth is transcendent to every major change of life. If you don’t weigh the cost and make a plan, the chances of finishing the plan are slim.
So, before we get to the new year, let’s pause and look back at who we were so we can decide what we want to do to move a little closer to who we want to become.
Reflecting on the Past Year
Before you can set new goals and plan for the year ahead, it’s crucial to take a step back and reflect on the past year. Reflecting helps you establish what things you want to change and what you want to continue to improve on.
And I have to be honest; reflecting is not my strong point. I’m definitely a keep moving forward and fix it as we go kind of person. It is a super struggle for me to look back, and even harder sometimes for me to slow down, but I also know it’s good for me. So if you’re like me and find it difficult to look back, here are some places to start.
Reviewing Accomplishments and Challenges
Start by making a list of your accomplishments from the past year. These could be personal achievements, career milestones, or anything that made you proud.
For me, thinking through the whole year is too much, so I like to break my life down into areas and think through what happened in those buckets. If I’m really struggling, I’ll look through my calendar to jog my memory.
Some areas to think about are
- Marriage
- Family
- Friends
- Work
- Hobbies
- School
- Business
- Finances
- Faith
Once you have a list of your accomplishments, take some time to reflect on each one. What were the challenges you faced? How did you overcome them? What did you learn from the experience?
Once you’ve looked back, identify what you’re proud of and what habits or abilities you want to keep or improve on. Were there any situations that you would have done differently? How?
Once you’ve reflected on the positive, it’s time to move on to your challenges.
Identifying Areas for Improvement
Now, consider the areas of your life where you’d like to see improvement. Go back through your list of your life areas and identify the challenges you faced this year. Are there habits you want to break, skills you want to acquire, or relationships you want to strengthen? Be honest with yourself about what you’d like to change.
Once you have identified the areas where you would like to see improvement, you can start to develop a plan for how to make those changes. There are probably three different areas you’ll want to improve: habits, skills, or relationships.
Habits
Habits can be difficult because they’re exactly that: a habit. Maybe even to the point that you’re not aware of it. If you have habits you want to change, you’ll want to identify what triggers the habit so that you can set up more awareness around it. You’ll also want to decide what you want to replace it with. One of the habits I’m trying to break right now is mindless scrolling and app tapping. So one thing I do is when I find myself mindlessly opening apps, I move my apps around, so I have to actually think about it. The other thing I’m doing is replacing it with reading. When I notice myself mindlessly scrolling, I switch to my Kindle reader and do a little reading. And, while I can read on my phone, I’m also working on my relationship with my family, so switching to the reader not only keeps me from being distracted by notifications but also shows my family that I’m not just on my phone but reading, which is something I want my kids to value as well.
Skills
Whether it’s a new skill or improving a current one, there are plenty of free and cheap options out there for learning and improving skills. However, if you find yourself to be someone who falls off the bandwagon of learning easily, signing up for a class may be a better way to jump-start things. If that’s not in the budget, get a friend to commit to learning with you and set up Zoom meetings or regular study sessions together; plus you’ll improve on some relationship time.
Relationships
It’s all about relationships. So if you have relationships you want to grow, you have to set aside time to prioritize them. You may have to get creative, like maybe it’s working out or learning together. Or maybe it’s carpooling or calling them on your drive home, but if it’s important to you, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out a way to invest in those relationships more.
What to stop
Now that you know all the things you want to keep and grow in this year, you need to look back at the things you want to stop doing or eliminate from life. The goal isn’t to keep adding things in till you’re so stressed you fail at everything. Now that you know what the most important things are, you can look at everything else and ask, “is that important enough to keep?”
There are lots of good things we can have in our life and a lot of good things we can do, but we weren’t meant to do it all or have it all. So this is your time to reflect on what stressed you out or made you miserable, even though it might have been good. Or where do you feel obligated to have something in your life, and it’s not good for you? Or even more importantly, are there unhealthy situations or people that you need to set boundaries with or eliminate altogether?
Write all those things down, and we can start talking about how to set priorities for the new year.
Prioritizing Goals for the Year
Now that we have our lists, we need to make a plan. And really, that starts with picking your priorities. If you only have a couple of things you want to accomplish, then you’ll probably be good. But once you start having more than 5, it becomes necessary for you to pick what the most important things are and put them in order of priority.
So take all the things you want to do for the year and list them in order from most important to least. Once you’ve done that, go through and decide how much time you think it will take to accomplish them. If you want to lose ten pounds, that’s a different amount of time than 50. And learning to play the piano takes a different amount of time than being ready to play a concert.
Once you know what you want to accomplish and how long it will legitimately take you to accomplish it, we’re going to set some goals.
Once you have your list of what’s important to you, I want you to pair it up with the things you’re going to eliminate because it’s always easier to end something if there is something new to replace it. If there isn’t a clear connection between things you want to remove with things you want to add, just write it at the bottom of the lists so that you can keep it in mind as you work on making your plan.
Setting Clear Goals
Once you’ve reflected on the past year, it’s time to set clear and achievable goals for the New Year. Goals provide direction and motivation, helping you stay focused and committed.
Defining Specific, Measurable Objectives
Now that you know what you want to do and how long it would reasonably take to accomplish, it’s time to get SMART about it. I’ve been doing SMART goals off and on throughout my career, but if you’re not familiar with them at all, here’s what the letters stand for:
Specific: Your goal should be specific and measurable. For example, instead of saying, “I want to lose weight,” you could say, “I want to lose 10 pounds in 2 months.”
Measurable: Your goal should be measurable so that you can track your progress. For example, if your goal is to save money, you could track how much money you save each week or month.
Achievable: Your goal should be achievable. If you set a goal that is too difficult, you are less likely to achieve it. For example, if you have never run a marathon before, setting a goal to run a marathon in 3 months is probably not achievable.
Relevant: Your goal should be relevant to your overall goals and objectives. For example, if your goal is to get a promotion at work, setting a goal to learn a new skill that is relevant to your job is a good idea.
Time-bound: Your goal should have a specific deadline. This will help you stay motivated and on track. For example, if your goal is to save money, you could set a deadline of 6 months to save $1,000.
Recently, I’ve been doing more with SMART goals, but I’ve also been smart about them (see what I did there.) When they were first introduced to me, it didn’t always make sense how to set them up to actually be SMART; enter Chat GPT. And this will work with the free version, but I just go and say, “I want to make a SMART goal about (fill in the thing you need a goal for) what information do you need.” From there, it will tell you all the things you need to decide in order to make a SMART goal. You can feed it back, and it will pop out a fully formed SMART goal. If it feels long, you can also say make it one sentence long, and then you’ll have a simple focus statement for what you’re trying to achieve.
Next Steps
How does it feel to have your goals set for the next year? Next week, we’re going to work on creating an action plan and setting yourself up for success so you’re not one of the millions who make a resolution and have given up by February. But for now, your next step is just to make your lists and set your goals.
And before you go to do that, share in the comments what your top goal for next year is.
Stay Weird,
