The new year often offers the incentive for us to set new goals and take on new mindsets; therefore, it’s no surprise that our highly ambitious resolutions may get slowly forgotten and neglected. Here at the Sentinel Sun, we’ve put together an all-in-one guide on how to plan, keep track, and take action on your resolution this year.
1. Creating Your New Year’s Resolutions
Brainstorm and assess: Create a list of everything you would like to accomplish, as well as some things you would like to improve on. What were some things you were proud of doing last year? What are some things you would like to do this year? What are some things you struggle with? What would you like to prioritize for this year? List down as many ideas as you can! Doing this with a pen and paper may help you better visualize your ideas and connect them.
Identify your goals: What are some things I want myself to work on this year? It is always helpful to start off by categorizing your goals—whether they’re personal, academic, self-care, or any other type. It’s important to have a healthy balance of goals for your mental and emotional well-being. Here are some examples of goals you might come across:
Academic goal: finishing a program you’re interested in completing
Personal goal: making new friends that have different interests than you!
Self-care goal: making sure you’re getting 8-10 hours of sleep every night
Prioritize your goals: Identify the most important goals you want to achieve this year, and categorize them into short-term and long-term goals. We recommend not setting too many goals as you might not be able to keep track of all of them at the end. From our personal experience, having 10 is a good number!
Narrow your goals into steps: Not all New Year’s resolutions are alike! Some may require many steps in order to complete or may require consistent commitment. Dissecting your goals into small steps can help your goals become more approachable. Can you identify any goals that may benefit from being dissected into separate steps?
Pro Tip! Apart from listing your New Year’s resolutions, making side notes of how your plan will be carried out gives you a better picture of the steps you need to take for achieving them. This might include the materials you would need, resources needed, and a more detailed step-by-step description of your plan. While it is important to be mindful of having flexible and realistic goals to achieve, don’t be scared to have resolutions that let you step out of your comfort zone!
2. Setting the Foundation for Your New Year’s Resolutions
Now that you’ve created your goals, it’s time to establish them somewhere. It is important to keep yourself responsible to ensure that you have success in maintaining your goals throughout the year! Keeping this in mind, you will want to create a system to refer to your resolutions every now and then; whether you’re someone who needs deadlines in order to successfully complete tasks or someone who enjoys logging their progress in a notebook, it’s important to find an organizational system that you like using to keep yourself on track. There are many methods to organize and keep track of your progress, but here are a couple of our personal favourites!
Planner: Having a traditional physical planner may be the perfect option for you. Decorate your planner to your liking and customize it to your wishes. Most people like to section and organize their planner by week in order to keep good track of their goals and tasks. Be creative with the different sections of your planner! You could have a checklist section, daily notes, or inspirational quotes every week for motivation.
Google Calendar: As most of us are often on our phones or laptops, Google Calendar may be a great way to track your schedule, set reminders, and notify yourself of upcoming events. With other built-in features such as collaborative calendars and reminder options, Google Calendar may be a great starting point for those who want to improve their time management skills for the new year.
Notion: Notion is a powerful all-in-one workplace for you to create notes, tables, spreadsheets for items, or even a personal diary. It is a great way to organize and arrange your plans, as well as keep all your information organized within a system! You can even add in a “Checklist” option for you to keep track of your progress as you go. With many tutorials and free Notion Page templates out on the internet, Notion is an app that anyone can learn, use, and customize to their liking! (not sponsored!)
If you are unsure as to how you can use it, feel free to watch this video:
Reminders: Sometimes, simple may be best. To those who may forget things often or have many tasks, creating small reminders that you can see everywhere could help remind yourself of an upcoming event or task. Whether that is sticking a post-it note on your bathroom mirror for you to do your skincare routine or adding a reminder to drink water on your phone, creating these small reminders that you can see in your environment can slowly help you build good habits, remind yourself of things you forgot from last week, or provide you better preparation for future events.
3. The Action Plan - Carrying out Your Goals
Now that you have established the important foundations of creating New Year’s resolutions, it’s time for you to complete them! Whether they’re fitness goals or academic goals, remember that progress is not always linear, and not all goals will follow the same timeline. So, don’t worry if you are not seeing immediate success with your resolutions!
Make sure you’re enjoying yourself: Executing New Year’s resolutions that you genuinely enjoy may help you see success in your resolutions faster. If you’re enjoying the ride, then the journey will seem like a breeze.
Reward yourself: After every achievement that you make, make sure to reward yourself with things that you get excited for. This does not necessarily have to be one huge prize; instead, it could be a couple of small rewards as you go so that you feel more fulfilled. Maybe it’s rewarding yourself with an episode of a show after studying or letting yourself have some free time to relax! By doing this, you are definitely motivating yourself through the year while also maintaining your mental health. Make sure your reward does not contradict your resolution, though—instead, celebrate your success with alternative choices.
4. For the Stumbles Along the Way
While you may have your goals planned out and organized from the beginning of the year, not everything goes as planned. It is okay to lose your footing as long as you’re able to get back up! If you feel that you may be going through a slump with your New Year’s resolutions, here are a couple of things to support you.
Fix the goal when it gets difficult: This is not to discourage you from achieving the dream that you have always wanted! When looking ahead at planning different goals for the rest of the year, we might all get a bit too excited and set goals that we might not be able to achieve. Persisting with goals that are not working does not only make you work backwards, but it also makes you discouraged when despite your efforts, you are not able to achieve a certain goal in a specific amount of time. Instead, alter your goals so that they’re “digestible.” This could be dissecting your bigger goals into small milestones—kind of like a character in a video game completing smaller side quests that lead up to the final boss.
Take a break: In the end, we might not be seeing success in something because we just need some time away from it. It is good to take some time to regroup and recollect yourself—when it comes to starting your journey again, you will feel more rejuvenated than if you didn’t take some time off.
“Why this goal?”: When you feel that you are losing touch with your goal, it is important to reflect on why you created this goal in the first place. Was it to become more socially active or improve your mental health? Setting your intentions in the beginning and being able to reference them after can help you reconnect with what you desired in the first place. Having clarity on your intentions and writing them out in a notebook or somewhere you can see visually can help motivate you after a potential slump.
Find a support system: While it’s great to be independent in achieving your aspirations, there is strength in numbers! Want to start getting more fresh air outside? Maybe a sibling can help remind you to stay persistent in your resolutions. Having a support system, whether that is a friend or a family member, may help you keep yourself accountable on the goals you would like to achieve for the year. Never be scared to reach out to someone for support; you never know how much they can help unless you ask for it!
At the end of the day, regardless of what goals you set or how long it takes you to reach them, you will be one step ahead of your 2021 self. We can assure you that out of the many goals you set, you will find success in some by implementing smart habits beforehand. Hopefully by using the tips we have recommended, you can set a strong foundation for achieving your goals and stay on track throughout the year. If you are still debating whether or not you should take the first step, right now is the time to do it! Make your future self proud, and think of the moment you will look back at the year with a smile on your face. You got this!
Disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes and we do not guarantee that your New Year’s resolutions will be a success.
Credentials:
Alice: Retired procrastinator and Master L-Taker (Work In Progress). Has experienced many failures with keeping New Year’s resolutions in the past (as well as other things) before finally succeeding and hitting a personal all-time best (completed all her New Year’s resolutions in 2021!). Here to share with you some tips and methods of maintaining your New Year’s resolutions, as well as giving you the insider’s look on some things to prioritize and some things to avoid when setting your resolutions.
Zahra: Certified try-hard and hapless daydreamer with deteriorating willpower as she pushes through the year. Mostly gets taken back at the overloading number of goals she has set for herself, but somehow manages to achieve them successfully with three crucial weapons: sleep deprivation, a pacemaker, and panic attacks. Here to share numerous tips that she knows will help you keep, execute, and develop your goals so that you will not have to suffer like she did.
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