Transitioning to the New Year: Goal Setting

If you are one of those people who had intended to achieve quite a number of listed goals this year but did not and you are experiencing feelings of anxiety over the forthcoming new year, you are not alone! As we approach the end of the year, we evaluate what we have and have not accomplished in the past 12 months. It is critical to recognize and accept these feelings because it is the first step to taking proactive and constructive actions to enhance your overall mental health and well-being. 

The beginning of the year is a great time to start a new habit but while most people make resolutions, many others fail to keep them after only two weeks. A healthy alternative to feeling guilty or pressured into making significant lifestyle changes for the new year is to consider what you actually need, want or would benefit from. Making modest and enduring adjustments can be more energizing and can serve as a trigger for more significant changes we want to see in ourselves. Also, setting measurable benchmarks and realistic dates for improvements and changes that are focused on your individual needs, aspirations, and ambitions is highly important.

In this article, we will focus on goal-setting as a highly effective method for imagining your ideal future and inspiring yourself to make your dreams come true. You may decide where you want to go in life by creating goals but knowing exactly what you want to accomplish helps you focus your efforts in the right places and you will be able to identify distractions that can easily misdirect you.

Goal setting implies that if we aren’t happy with the direction that our lives are taking, we need to make some changes in order to feel more fulfilled. If we are serious about making significant improvements in our lives, we will, without a doubt, have to alter our outcomes as well as the people we keep company with. This may require a significant amount of encouragement and support from us. If we take a look at the world around us and consider the individuals in our lives who are succeeding at the things they desire out of life, we may notice that these people have already made the necessary adjustments.

We will all run into folks who don’t accept personal responsibility for their own actions and let their actions dictate their results. Those who complain about the unfairness of life, how they never get a break, or how someone else has all the good fortune, are the ones in this entitled category of people. Unfortunately, they may not be looking at how hard those people have worked to create what they have.

It takes a lot of determination and desire to get what we want out of life.  In order to achieve what we desire, we need to make a commitment to ourselves and have an awareness of how things operate. Setting objectives, committing them to paper, and then actively pursuing them is the only way to figure out which activities will get us to the final destination we see for ourselves. Another important concept that we must comprehend is that failure is a necessary step on the path to success, but success alone does not mark the end of an endeavor by itself.

The new year is almost upon us and to avoid getting stuck in another cycle of setting objectives, losing track of them or failing to achieve them and then setting the same goals once more with a fresh resolution to accomplish them, do not be broken by the weight of expectations, face every situation the right way, be consistent, keep yourself accountable, track your progress and celebrate you small successes.