How to Make Our New Years Resolutions Stick

It’s that time of year again. New year, fresh start to achieve our goals. This time, we are going to make our goals/resolutions stick.

I say “we” because I’m no good at this either. So I’ll be making sure mine stick this year, too.

In this article, I will be talking about what I know we need to do, and why. Let’s get to it, shall we?

The Basic Rule:

Many people say resolutions are crap. Others swear by them. I believe the answer is somewhere in the middle.

The people who do not achieve their resolutions believe and or do one of two things, or both. They believe that because it’s a new year, there is something magical about the flip of a calendar and things will sort themselves out. If this isn’t the case, and they didn’t achieve their goals, it is because they relied on the initial motivation to get them through.

I fell victim to the second of these two limiting factors this year. Motivation always comes and goes. You are screwed if you rely on it.

So what’s required for us to achieve our resolutions? Well, we need to have clear goal(s), WITH a plan, with reasons WHY we want to achieve these goal(s).

The actual turning of the New Year doesn’t do anything except act as a “figurative fresh start”. We can start fresh whenever, but some people, including myself, just like the thought of a fresh start on the New Year.�That is fine, as long as we know the change comes from our actions, not the changing of time from December 31st at 11:59 PM to January 1st at 12:00 AM.

Let’s discuss a little more about what we need to do.

 

Clear Goal(s), Why & The Plan:

Alright, so the goal part is obvious. Making the goals clear, not so much. There needs to be something quantitative that we can work towards, not something that can’t be measured. Then as discussed previously, we have the why. Lastly, we have the plan. How will we accomplish our goals? What is the gameplan?

Clear Goal(s):

You run a business and want to do $20,000 dollars in sales in the first quarter (first 3 months). That would be your clear goal. An unclear goal would be, “Do more sales”. With a clear goal, when you hit $10,000 in the first month, you’re thinking, “Damn, I’m making great progress so far”. If you just wanted to “Do more sales”, you wouldn’t know if you were doing good or not, even if you hit $10,000 in the first month.

The Why:

Remember when I said motivation comes and goes, and we CAN NOT depend on it? The why is how we will stay consistent when the motivation isn’t there. Honestly think about WHY our brain decided the goals we thought about and ended up choosing. There is a reason.

Plan:

There are 2 reasons why a plan is important. #1 is it tells us how we’ll achieve our goal. it puts us in a much better position to accomplish what we set out to accomplish, compared to having no plan at all.

But the second reason, and in my opinion, the most important reason is it tells us what we are supposed to be doing. So day by day, when we execute that plan, it builds momentum for ourselves. Additionally, let’s say we didn’t hit our goal. We can look at our plan, and still feel good knowing we did what we were supposed to do.

That being said, there does seem to be something “left to be desired”, even if we executed our plan, but didn’t reach our goal.

A plan allows us to have a baseline of what we are doing. A constant. So as we progress towards our goal, we know what it is we are doing that is producing the results we are getting.

So if we are not on track to hit our goal(s), we have a plan that we can look at, assess, and see what needs to be or should be changed to steer us in the direction of our goal(s). A plan basically allows us to make adjustments, to put us in a better position to accomplish our goal(s).

Let’s say the opposite is happening. We are CRUSHING, and are well on our way to hitting our goals. We can look at that plan and see what is working and why. Then we can decide if there is a way for us to further optimize our plan. Whether that is taking out or changing dead weight, or doubling down on what is working.

My Example:

To put this all into perspective for ya’ll, I will be sharing my New Years Resolutions or goal(s), and my plan to achieve them.

I will be stating the three goals I have, explaining WHY they are a goal, and showing the plan behind them.

Goal #1 – Fitness Brand Goals:

This website is part of my fitness brand. Actually, by reading this, you are contributing to my goal. So, thank you.

My goals involve building my audience across my different social media platforms. The reason I am striving to do this is that part of what I want to do later in life is run a successful fitness business. Primarily involving coaching, at least at first, where I would then like to branch out into other things such as selling actual products. A bigger audience helps give me leverage to achieve these goals.

Numerical Goal Values:

Instagram: 1,000 followers

FaceBook: 75 followers

Twitter: 75 followers

TikTok: 2,000 followers

LinkedIn: 25 connections

YouTube: 100 subscribers

Podcast: 10 downloads per podcast

Website: 1,000 organic reach site visits per month

The Plan:

Write a daily “Power List” of objectives I need to accomplish. This power list will always involve attributes directly related to achieving these goals. These objectives could include making and posting all content planned for the day, doing 30 minutes of social media commenting on other people’s content, or conducting research on fitness-related, business and various skill acquisition topics to produce better and better, and more “efficient” content for growing my audience.

Goal #2 – Financial Position:

At the end of 2021, I want to be in a financial position that gives me the freedom to make choices that will impact my life down the road. Both because of the money that I will have, and the fact that achieving my financial goal will prove that what I am doing has merit.

Numerical Goal Values:

By December 31st, 2021, I want to obtain $40,000 in the form of either straight-up cash, or assets, pre-tax.

The Plan:

End the lawn care season with a profit of $10,000

Work 20 hours on average, per week, at a standard job (when school is out)

Profit $15,000 from investing

Of course, these objectives require a plan. I am still working on my lawn care season plan, I have a current job that provides about 8 hours of work per week, so I would need to find a second job when or before school is out. As for investing, I will continue what I have going with sports cards, and I plan to explore a stock portfolio when I am 18.

These, in conjunction with the funds that I currently have, will put me at $40,000 or more.

Goal #3 – Personal Development:

I want to spend more time developing myself as an individual. This will come in the form of developing my knowledge, increasing social event participation and enjoying the process more. The reason for this goal is because developing my knowledge in areas relative to my life and aspirations will amplify/help what I am accomplishing in those areas. Increasing social event participation will add more fun to my life and further develop my social skills, and enjoying the process more with what I am doing will reduce stress, making everything I do BETTER. That’s the goal, isn’t it? To be BETTER.

In this case, the numerical values are part of the plan.

The Plan:

Read 10 pages of a self-development book each day

Complete 2 fitness certification courses

Attend some social event outside of school or the gym at least once every 2 weeks

Start every day with 3 things that I am grateful for

Prioritize getting work done earlier in the day when possible, so it is easier to make it not a focus point throughout the entire day. I will do check-ins for this once per week.

Practice mindfulness of how I am perceiving the process. I will check in on this once per week.

The End:

Well, everyone, that is what I believe we need to do in 2021 in order for our New Years’ resolutions to stick, and my plan for 2021.

Consider sharing your plans for 2021 in the comment section, I would love to hear them! No, your plans don’t need to be as detailed as mine when you share them. After all, mine was written in an article and yours will be in a comment, lol.

Thank you for reading, I hope this has been helpful. Take care and let’s go crush 2021!

 

Until Next Time,

Kohl Johnson

Please refer to my liability disclaimer to ensure you know who is responsible for use of this information after reading.