The Busy Girls’ guide to Goal Setting in the New Year

The New Year is almost here and I’m giddy with excitement!

Honestly, I LOVE all the feels that come with a new year. Closing one chapter and opening another. 365 days of new opportunities and new possibilities. The feeling of endless options. It’s a totally clean slate! Plus, as I’m writing this, we’re lucky enough to be starting this next year as a brand new DECADE. What a time to be alive! 😜

Alright, I’m done geeking out now. 🤓 The point I’m trying to make is that ready or not, the new year is coming and I want nothing more for you than to start it off on the right foot!

I’m no expert, but over time I’ve developed a process that’s been extremely beneficial to me when it’s come to accomplishing big goals. Like finding a healthy lifestyle, losing baby weight (+ some) and keeping it off, writing and posting to this blog, and saving more money.

Hopefully this process can help you set yourself up for success this year, too, no matter what your goal is!

Note: I really want to use the goal I have for this next year as an example throughout this post, (and it’s a huge, HUGE goal). However, as much as I want to blab all about it and fill you in (I’m probably the most open book you know), for personal reasons, I have to keep it to myself for now. But when it happens, OH MAN. I’ll be shouting from a rooftop. Hang with me. I think 2020 is going to be the best year yet! Ok, I digress. Let’s dive in:

Part One: Marinate on your new goal.

Pray/Brainstorm ahead of time.

Do you know how many New Year’s resolutions I’ve come up with on New Year’s Eve? More than I can count. And you can probably guess how many of those I actually followed through with, too. (The answer would be zero.)

If you’re looking to set a big goal or reach a dream in the new year, don’t wait until the last minute to game plan. Start brain storming ahead of time and if you’re unsure, maybe try asking God to show you what it is He wants you to accomplish in the year ahead.

Set a theme for the year instead of a long list of goals.

I love goals so much that I want to conquer, like, 500 of them every year. (Where are my Enneagram 3’s at? This is our absolute death.)

But the truth is, if I spread out my goals and try to focus on too many at a time, I never accomplish any of them. I’ve learned A LOT from my girl, Rachel Hollis, and one of those things is to simply FOCUS on one goal at a time.

So think about how you want to grow this year. What things can you do better? What can make you a better person by the end of the year? Then take these answers and develop a theme for the year. Or, if it’s easier, just pick a word to focus on over the next 365 days.

The point is to keep it simple, and keep it focused. Don’t try to spread yourself too thin and conquer too many things at a time, because I’ve fallen into that trap and it ends with me accomplishing exactly nothing.

Look for things you can add in, not Subtract.

I think a lot of people (I’ve done this, too!) look at the New Year as a time to QUIT something. Quit eating junk food, quit sleeping through alarms and waking up late, quit smoking, etc. etc.

But what if we took the New Year as a time to ADD IN something instead? For example, maybe this is the year you’re ready to make over your health. Instead of saying, “I’ve got to stop eating potato chips at 2 in the afternoon!” you could say, “I’m going to start eating veggies and dip at 2 in the afternoon.” Or if you’re looking to cut out coffee (which seems ludicrous to me, but I get it! Sometimes you gotta kick a habit!), try adding in more water intake throughout the day. You’ll inevitably end up swapping java for H2O before you know it.

I’ve come to learn that adding things in is easier and less stressful than constantly trying to subtract things out. Plus it takes the positive route instead of the negative route that has you beating yourself up because you’re you’re struggling to quit some of your habits.

Part Two: Take Action.

Now that you have your goal in mind, you’ve got a good foundation to work from. You’ve got a theme or a word for the year and you know what you’re going to try to add in instead of subtracting out. Next up is putting your work boots on and taking some action, which is arguably the hardest part, let’s just say it. SO, here are some ways you can make the whole “taking action” thing less scary:

Dreaming.❤️

This is my FAVORITE part, friend! (If you’re curious why, check out this post I wrote that’s dedicated to the dreamers. Also, you can’t see me, but I’m totally clapping my hands in delight about covering this topic.)

One thing I’ve found that helps to be super successful with a goal, is to imagine how your life will be once this goal is accomplished. How will you feel? How will your life be different? How will your family’s life be different? How will you act and what will you wear?

These may seem like silly questions, but I truly encourage you to think about it. Dream big! Create a vision board if that helps! (<–Another favorite thing of mine to do.) Whatever it is you need to do to visualize your life after accomplishing your big goal, DO IT!

Once you’ve seen how your life can be, it will become much harder to give up on your goal.

Roadmapping!

It’s taken me a lot of trial and error and a lot of failing to figure out an important fact about goal setting: It really works best if you work backward.

Here’s what I mean: When we set goals, we know what it is we want to accomplish, right? What we don’t always have figured out is the HOW. How do we get where we want to go?

And it’s so easy to dive in at step 1 with the hopes that we’ll eventually reach our goal at step 10. So hear me when I say that this has been life changing: What actually works best is starting with step 10 and working backward to step 1 so we can see the exact roadmap to get where we want to go.

Let’s use an example. Let’s say that you want to run a half-marathon next year. (Some of you are going to skim right over this because I’m using running as an example, but please stay with me here!) First, when’s the big day scheduled? That will be your end goal, right? The D-day. The day you’ll have to be able to comfortably run 13.1 miles in order to accomplish your goal.

So how many miles do you need to run the week before that? And the week before that? At what point in time do you need to start your training? And working backwards from the starting point, what can you do before the training even starts to prepare yourself?

I’m serious about doing this, friend. Setting a goal is important, but figuring out how to get there is almost more so. And setting small milestones along the way makes the whole process immensely less overwhelming.

Creating New Habits.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the goal you’ve chosen for next year will require you to change some of your habits. Or at least replace some of your not-so-great ones with some healthier ones (as we discussed above when we were thinking about things we could add in instead of constantly subtracting out).

So start making a list of some habits you’re going to need to change or add in order to be successful at reaching your goal. List it allll out. Going back to our example of running a half marathon, when will you make time to run? Will it require you to start getting up earlier in the morning? Or start working out over your lunch break? What habits can you pick up now that will get you successfully to your new goal?

Once you have your list, rearrange it in order of priority. And then, you got it, focus on one habit at a time. I can attest that going all in on one habit at a time is the only way make over your life. It was the only way I was finally able to find a healthy eating plan that worked for me, too.

Part Three: Evaluate.

PLEASE do not skip this step! Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Listen, I think one of the BIGGEST REASONS we fall off the wagon (if you will) when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions is that we forget to check back in with ourselves. Before we know it, it’s March 13th and we’re trying to remember what goal we even set for the new year.

So find time to do a self-eval and see where you’re at on your journey. Are you following your road map? Are you where you want to be by this date? What do you need to do differently or change so you can keep forging ahead?

I recommend finding a time to do this regularly. For me, weekly seems to work best. But if monthly or daily works better for you, do you girl. Just please don’t be afraid to check in with yourself. Even if you’re scared to admit that you’re way off track. There is ALWAYS time to readjust and get back at it.

Wrapping Up.

To recap, here’s the basic steps I’ve found to work when it comes to goal setting:

• Part one: Take the time now to think over your goal. What ONE thing do you want to do this next year? And what can you add into your life instead of subtracting out?
• Part two: Take action. It’s tougher than it sounds, but do some dreaming to really focus on how you want your life to be once you’ve achieved your goal, create a roadmap so you know how to get where you’re going, and start tackling one habit at a time.
• Part three: Evaluate. CHECK IN WITH YOURSELF, SISTER. Even if you’ve gotten way off course, self-evaluating will give you a fighting chance to readjust and get back to it.

And, as one final personal note, I want you to know that I’ve spent A LOT of New Year’s creating a resolution only to end the year trying to remember what my resolution even was. It wasn’t until 2 years ago that I really started getting this figured out.

I would really love to save you time and failure if I can. So, if you’re serious about your New Year’s goals, and you’re looking for 2020 to blow 2019 out of the water, then I would love for you to give this process a try!

**Over to you: I’d love to hear what your goal for this next year is! Feel free to comment below! ❤️