Resolutions are out and smart goals are in for 2025
With a new year often comes new resolutions. Yet resolutions fall as fast as they rise. In this post, we share a sustainable way to capitalize on the squeaky clean feeling a new year brings. Keep reading to find out what kind of goals are helpful, what to focus on for more fulfillment, and more!
*Last updated on October 19th, 2024
Resolutions. The goals my teenage self would write every New Year’s Eve. Get abs like Britney Spears. Stop biting my nails. Willing them to exist with each letter I wrote.
A few weeks later, I was nowhere close to having better abs or untouched nails. I’m sure I’m not alone. After many years of making goals and not reaching them, the confidence in resolutions went poof.
It’s easy to want to toss this ritual in the bin. But rather than quit resolutions, let’s tweak the approach. Let’s still capitalize on the squeaky clean feeling a new year brings. In a more sustainable way. Keep reading to find out how.
Goals Aren’t Helpful Unless…
Goals aren’t helpful unless it makes sense to your identity. How you see yourself can be the difference between reading two books a month or none at all. As a kid, my identity wasn’t someone who worked out five days a week and ate healthily. So the Britney goal didn’t become a reality.
However, I saw myself as a singer and as someone who would become successful in music. This is why after six months of networking in Los Angeles right after high school I found myself working for one of the most famous songwriting production houses. It’s not the only reason. But I would’ve given up after one month, had the goal not fit with my identity.
A fulfilling life isn’t about picking one goal then willpower-ing your way to its manifestation. It’s about knowing who you want to become. Then building daily systems that make that person real. That helps you build actual momentum.
Focus on This Instead
A lot of business content talks about delegating and automating. Why not automate your mental and emotional well-being? As James Clear says, if you get 1% better every day, you’ll get where you want to go.
Once habits are on autopilot, your growth becomes automatic. Subconscious. You’ll be more resilient when challenges come and your lens of the world changes for the better. Dr. Benjamin Hardy, author of The Gap and The Gain*, says, “The past, and how we view it, is more a reflection of where we currently are than of the past itself.”
By focusing your energy on good habits, you change how you view your present and past, setting you up for a more promising future. This can lead to better decision-making, greater health and happiness, and healing from trauma. With that, here are habits to consider for greater mental hygiene and making growth automatic in 2023.
Replace New Year’s Resolutions (Achievement Goals) with Habit Goals
Anything with a deadline is an achievement goal. Apply to university by March 31st. Get my manuscript done by June 19th. They’re one-and-done goals that prove necessary sometimes. But they’re not as helpful with how we’ve historically treated resolutions.
The changes you’re hoping to make through resolutions aren’t one-and-done. They’re tied to who you want to become. Resolutions are like the square peg not fitting into the round hole of lasting change. You want to focus on habit goals instead.
I learned the difference from fellow writer Corey Fradin. He says, “Habit goals are those goals that repeat. They…become part of your lifestyle. For example, goals like reading two books a month or running five miles a week...They repeat and don’t have a clear endpoint. You just keep going until it feels like they’re part of who you are.”
Who do you want to become? What kind of habit goals would support that vision? The sum of every individual action and decision makes up a life. What consistent actions do you want to take?
Take Action:
Write down the person you want to become. Then write consistent actions you want to turn into lifestyle habits.
Protect Your Mornings
The pandemic in 2020 taught us many things. One of them is the importance of boundaries: With work. Relationships. Our TV. It’s important to create boundaries so you have a healthier relationship with yourself and others.
Commit to and create a morning routine. Like yesterday. There’s a reason morning routine content continues to do well. The idea of having time to yourself in the morning resonates.
Having a morning routine goes much deeper than that. By beginning each day in the embrace of what fills you up you tell yourself you matter. You’re choosing how you intend to exist on this planet. Not living only to react to external demands on your time. That’s a powerful statement.
A morning routine creates a feeling of stability, nurturing, momentum, and focus. And no, I’m not recommending you wake up at 5:30 am or take a cold shower. Morning routines only work based on your personality, capacity, and how much time you have. Allow yourself to create something unique to you.
Take Action:
Create a morning routine you’re excited about. If you want to figure out what works best for you, download my free guide here.
Protect Your Time
In the same vein as protecting your mornings, widen your boundaries to protect your overall time. In a filterless era with constant content and never-ending notifications, no one will set boundaries for you. It’s crucial to protect your art. Your work. Your relationships. Your sanity.
Aside from the dopamine fix we get from constant communication, there may be a deeper reason for not wanting to unplug. Our society rewards the shallow work of being connected: email, social media, and so on. If a business doesn’t have a social presence: irrelevant. A person not answering email within the hour? Unproductive. We’re taught our very livelihoods and future success hinges on constant connectivity. Where’s the freedom and reward in that?
The good news is I went off social media for three months. Hardly anyone noticed and it didn’t affect my ability to get clients or connect with my audience. The lesson being there are more paths available to get the results you want. We’re sold one or two paths but there are many.
This is one of many ways we can fall victim to the ebb and flow of someone else’s dictates. This year, attempt to decide the terms social, communication, and people have in your life.
Unfollow as many people as needed to get peace
Create a schedule for when you do log into social
Remove email from your phone
Create theme days to batch certain kinds of work
Schedule blocks of time reserved for relationships
Create a hard stop time for work. The rest can wait until tomorrow.
By doing any of these things, you’re acting as founder and CEO of your life. You get to decide how your life runs. Give limits to things with intention. Otherwise, you won’t have fulfillment or peace.
When everyone online talks about being your own boss or creating a life you love it doesn’t happen with magic. You must make hard decisions like a real CEO would to make that a reality. To get one thing, you have to say no to others. Until you’re able to do that, you won’t be ready to have the life you want.
Treat your time as valuable. Be aware of where your time is going. When you feel overwhelmed or burned out, step back and look at what you overscheduled that week. Then adjust accordingly. Your time is worth more than you know.
Take Action:
Write down boundaries you want to create in your work life and personal life. Actually, schedule them into your calendar and make blocks of time around these new boundaries. After 1 month, adjust as needed and repeat until you have a good balance.
Track (and Celebrate) Your Growth
Oh em gee. This one’s HUGE. The value and importance of tracking and celebrating your wins. Weekly and quarterly. There’s no other way to integrate your progress and continue growing to the next level.
The brain is primed to forget wins because of a mechanism called automaticity. This mechanism helps us adapt to changes in our environment quickly so the brain can continue to function with efficiency. Changes are normal: Moving to a new home or apartment. Starting a new job.
The brain works to make those changes your new norm. Then you can flow again through life with more ease. There’s a benefit to “forgetting” the way life was before. With this helpful mechanism also comes the downside of forgetting the progress you’ve made.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy talks about how we notice gaps a lot more than gains*. We often look ahead to where we haven’t gone, instead of how far we’ve come. This can cause anxiety, depression, and more.
This year, retrain your brain to look at the gains instead of the gaps. The best way to do this is through none else than a habit goal. The easiest way is by tacking it onto a habit you already have. Like daily journaling. Add it to a practice you already do.
Dr. Hardy teaches an easy journaling exercise that helps you retrain your brain. I’ve been using it for 6 months now and noticed a tremendous shift in my momentum and happiness. Get this habit down and your life will change.
Take Action:
Pick a method right now to track your wins. One that integrates well with a habit you already do. Like having a notebook on your nightstand where you write 3 wins down before bed. Or tweak an existing journaling habit.
Accept People as They Are
Judging or trying to change people takes up a lot of mental and emotional space. It drains energy like you wouldn’t believe. This doesn’t mean someone is a bad person. It only means judgment is a habit.
Like any habit, one can unlearn it. Most people don’t want advice or help. They want validation and support. If you have a tendency to be forceful with your advice or judgmental, let it go.
Anything you place your attention on drains that energy. This diagram from Joe Dispenza’s book Becoming Supernatural* gives a great visual:
There are a lot of daily things that take pieces of our energy. There’s even more energy sapped with judgment or hate. Give yourself back some energy and use it on something more worthwhile.
Like learning to love yourself more. Or focusing on the gifts you’re meant to share. Start channeling this urge into healthier avenues. As Brene Brown says:
“If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgement at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you’re criticizing from a place where you’re not also putting yourself on the line, I’m not interested in your feedback.”
This is one of the easiest decisions you could make to improve your life. As mentioned in the first tip, make it about your identity. Decide today that you are not someone who judges or gives advice without asking. Done.
Take Action:
Do something to cut ties with judgment/cynicism/fear-mongering. Write down an affirmation that reinforces your identity as someone who only loves and focuses on self-growth. Then repeat until it becomes real.
Did any of these tips hit home for you? Would you add anything else? Let me know in the comments!
Affirmation
I embrace thoughts and actions that free up my energy and raise me higher. I release anything that makes me feel smaller.
Do This Today
Commit to one of the suggestions mentioned above and share what resonated with you in the comments below!
Writing Prompt
How would it feel to have more boundaries around my time and energy? What judgments about myself and others do I need to release?
Resources
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