plotting your path for the new year

The celebration of the new year and the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions can be traced back to the early Babylonians, around 4000 years ago. In those days the most common resolution is alleged to have been the returning of borrowed farming equipment. These days common resolutions include to lose weight, to quit smoking, to do more exercise, or to save more money. Needless to say, many of us have big plans but never follow them through. Three days later we’re gorging on chocolate, thinking about how much easier it is to stay on the lounge instead of running around the block, thinking ‘I’ll start tomorrow’. Only tomorrow never comes. Before you know it, New Year’s Eve is around again and you’re making the same old promise to yourself.

So what has all this to do with you?

Having goals/resolutions can help to keep you focused on where you want to go with your life. Goal setting is an important step in actually achieving them. Often we make resolutions at this time of year purely out of tradition and conversation and never follow them through. This year use the ‘New Year’s Resolution’ to set yourself a path for 2007. Maybe it’s obtaining your driver’s licence, doing well at school/uni, or maybe it’s spending more time engaging in your creative pursuits.

So don’t just think about it—do it!

Create a plan

Think about some things you really want to achieve. The more you want to do something, the more likely you are to follow it through. The important thing is that your goals for the year are realistic, do-able.

Write it down

Write down your goals as you think of them. Divide them into short, medium and long term. Hang them in your room or your office, somewhere you can see them and be reminded regularly of what you have set out to do this year. Cross them off the list or highlight them as you achieve them.

Think long term

Short term goals will help you stay on track to achieving the longer term ones. Setting one long term goal will see you lose motivation early on because the reward is so far off that sometimes it seems like it will never arrive. Setting shorter term goals and achieving them will see you experience success and keep you motivated to achieve the longer term goals.

Set yourself some guidelines

Give yourself two things important things: specificity with enough room for flexibility. Sounds a little contradictory, I know! When I talk about being specific I mean when you set your goals let them be clear. Don’t just say, ‘I want to spend more time on my creative pursuits this year’ or ‘I want to save money this year’, as this is too ambiguous. Set some guidelines: for example, ‘I want to spend half an hour three days a week working on my novel’ or ‘I want to save twenty dollars a week’. When doing this, though, be careful to allow yourself some flexibility as sometimes things come up. Not allowing yourself flexibility will see you feeling like you’ve failed or cause you to resent what you’re trying to do. For example, if you miss putting away that twenty dollars one week, make it up over the next four weeks by saving an extra five dollars each week.

Stay motivated and reward yourself

Sometimes the path to achieving one’s goals seems like such hard work. Losing motivation often leads to not following through with our goals. Reward yourself once you’ve reached certain stages; this will help you to stay motivated. Find things that motivate you and use these when you’re feeling uninspired. Perhaps it’s reading your favourite author to remind you that this is what you want to do, or perhaps it’s walking past the travel agent, knowing that at the end of the year you too can walk in there and book your holiday!

Good luck.