New Year Resolutions 2019.

I need to find time to craft my new year resolutions for 2019. For the past few years, I have crafted them and it seemed to have helped in achieving most of my goals and put my life in order. Although not foolproof, writing my resolutions and goals for the year has helped me keep my life in order. I have maintained my fitness, achieved my fitness goals, achieved my financial goals and other personal development goals that I have set myself.

There are definitely a couple of goals that fall short. Like for example, my reading goals were not achieved. But at least I tried my best in trying to achieve the goals I have set for myself. It is true in what they say when it comes to writing down those goals; physically writing them down is half the battle won. The other half is ensuring that the goals are specific, with numbers that are achievable and not based on some benchmark that makes your life hard. New year resolutions’s are not there to make your life difficult and miserable. They are to keep your life in order, in a way that would make you happy. They are the rocks that anchor your life, and keep you rooted in reality. They are your companion in reminding you that the time given is a blessing and that you should make the best use of them. The goals are meant for you and you alone, and it should not be compared with others. Write goals that are specific, with a number on it and that is realistically achievable. This means having to spend time reflecting on the past year and on yourself, and try to craft goals that are achievable based on your abilities. It can be a simple goal you set for yourself, as long as you make the effort in reaching those goals.

Sometime we lose track of those goals and set out lofty goals that make you miserable, because you know it is a huge challenge to achieve them. That should not be the way. Like I mentioned, it is ok to set out an easy goal to achieve; writing them, sticking to them and achieving them is far better than merely dreaming about them and not doing them.

My trick in making an effective New Year Resolution is to craft goals with milestones on them. For example, If I set myself to read 24 books a year, which is achievable without too much difficulty, I can set a second milestone of 30 books to push myself harder if I so desire. Same goes for financial goals. If I set myself to save $12000 a year, which translates to $1000 a month, I can set a second milestone of $15000. Since I know for a fact that $12000 is easily achievable, as I have done in previous years, crafting second milestones, would remind myself that I can do better with added effort. Ultimately at the end of the day, you can set a goal that is easily achievable and set a second milestone goal if you have the capacity to push yourself a little harder in achieving them.

I think one of the biggest mistakes in people crafting their own resolutions is making them ambitious and lofty, which leads to people lapsing on their goals as the year progresses, or crafting goals that are increasingly difficult over the years, which makes them more miserable as more and more of those goals are left unattainable because of unrealistic expectations.

Come up with goals that you know you can achieve them. There is nothing wrong with creating a goal in your resolutions that are simple to begin with. You can always write a second milestone goal for the added challenge.

I am writing goals below that will be part of my new year resolutions lest I forget:

Financial goals:

1. Moratorium on buying a new smartphone. No new smartphone purchases for 2019.

2. Moratorium on upgrading my computer. No computer upgrades for 2019.