Just going to say it’s almost the end of January and I am just getting my head into gear for a New Year. I have to say this happens to me every single year, I am caught out by the first day of the year. I slide into the end of the year, and then rock and roll through the holidays, and when everyone goes back to work that first week of the year, I am good and ready for a REST.
I need a break too… just saying moms probably work their hardest over the holiday season, keeping everyone happy and excited and moving them on from one tradition/event to the next. Would I change it, so that I could be ready for the first of January? Not for anyone, January can actually wait a little!!!
It works for me, there are seasons of business and seasons of rest. And January is my season of rest.
I create my list of goals for the year, I potter around the garden, and I read. I read a lot!!! In the month that is very typically a no spend month (can’t think why!). I spend a lot of time decluttering: Clearing the counters, deep cleaning everything that may have missed a deep clean towards the end of the year and my year literally starts fresh in February.
Se7en Steps to Reaching Those Goals
I know a lot of people create goals for the year… and there is in fact a Science to that because Big Goals are Achieved Through Small Habits.
- Turn Your Dreams into Goals:
- Some Goals Are Actually a Collection of Habits:
- Create a list and Write it Down:
- Sometimes You Just Have to Start:
- Break Things Up:
- What Get’s Measured Get’s Done:
- The List is Your Priority:
When we think about goals we tend to think about our routines, and our fear of failure and “what if we fail” thoughts literally stop us in our tracks. We are all planning to clean out a cupboard or two, we are all planning to read a book or more a month, but what is your BIG dream… you don’t have to achieve it this year… but take a step or two towards it. If you dream is to climb Kilimanjaro, then get some walking shoes and promise to hike once a week for the year… start on that dream… because one thing always leads to another. But not starting anything… leaves dreams firmly in the dream pile and they can never become a goal.
I find it easier to dream big and then to break it down. I might have planned a BIG hike for this year… but I break that goal down into a daily habit of walking everyday. Some goals “To Read More”… need to be narrowed down to habits: read a chapter every night, read a chapter in the morning before you look at your phone. Be wary of over the top habit stacking: I am just going to say, if you are getting up early in the morning to write in your journal, read a book, do a workout and several other things as well… healthy as these habits are, you might be in the season of life that requires that you get an extra hour of sleep instead!!! You may find that just adding twenty minutes of this and twenty minutes of that, means that you actually run out of sleep… check which habits align with your goals and leave the rest.
The Science says that if you write a goal down the chances of succeeding is about a million trillion times better. Every year I write a list: “23 things in 23”, “24 things in 24” and “25 things in 25.” As soon as I started writing my list down each year… I am so much more focused… all the things that pop up on my horizon are mere distractions, and can go on the list for next year. So items on my list include things I love to do: Things I love doing that I don’t get around to, things that will challenge me, things that I don’t necessarily want to do but would make life easier… things like date days with my kids, sort out the vegi garden, these things have been done!!!
There are projects that don’t get done, and they pop onto the list year after year: Hello: “Photo-books, photo wall… photo anything. I simply haven’t broken these down into small enough steps… so this year I am making a plan to start… everyday I type the date into my photo app, and then sort through the photos for that day (over the years), delete the duplicates, delete the photos I don’t need and put the ones that I want for photo books into specific albums. Hopefully by the end of the year, when all the photo-book “specials” come out, I will be good and ready with photos for my photo books.
For years I had “sort the garden,” and nothing happened. After a while I didn’t actually want to be in the garden, which is crazy… when I realised that I could just tackle it little space by little space, things started to work better for me… Find what works!!! Fifteen minutes of dedicated gardening a day is far better for you than eight hours once a year… trust me I have tried both. The reality is I am never going to be one of those urban farmers that supply their family and friends with seasonal vegi boxes… I am of the scale of: provide our family with something from the garden with every meal we cook. Once I had figured that out, everything got better… I can keep a couple of herbs alive, I can keep two tomato plants going through the summer… and hopefully this year a fabulous supply of cucumbers.
Some goals are do everyday kind of goals… and some require building on. The head out for walk every, read a chapter before bed every evening, and so on… definitely deserve a check box and a daily tick. Don’t worry if you skip a day, as soon as those ticks start adding up, they will spark joy and you will want a lot more… when it comes to habits, tracking is the way to go. For example, my sleep habit – of course I sleep every day – tick tick – but for how many hours? I am notoriously bad at getting the sleep I need, but as soon as I start making a list of the daily sleep hours for the month… then things start to work!!!
At the end of each month I love to check over my list for the year… just to remind myself what my proprieties are for the year… if a new challenge arrives on the horizon… it is very easy to decide if it aligns with my list of goals for the year or not. Some things can be left until next year, somethings can be approved upon and somethings can be forgotten… just because your best friend has a coffee date every week doesn’t mean that you have to do the same. That being said, a weekly coffee date with a friend, is a fine idea and I am challenging myself with that this year.
Just keep going, a small amount of progress is actually progress… and will inspire you to do a little more. Some things on your list will happen really quickly, some things will take time and saving for, but step by step… keep on plodding. Dreams become goals, which are built by habits… that’s the science of it. So create that list of goals for 2025, nobody cares that January has spun by… you still have the greater part of the year to get onto it…