It’s not about cute New Year New Me goal lists, it’s about actually achieving.
“With EOY on the horizon and goals/resolutions coming in hot, SIMPLIFY.
Unless you’ve proven to yourself you can change/achieve 10 things simultaneously, choose 1.
Win a singular goal 100%.
It’s far more beneficial than achieving 15% of 10 things & then eventually quitting.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I used to be one of those guys who was very serious about setting New Years Goals.
Matter of fact, I didn’t have a “goal sheet”, I had layers of documents related to the variety of goals I had, why they were important to me, and what I was going to do to achieve them. I’m talking like 20-30 pages worth of handwritten notes on college ruled notebook paper.
And then I found out that as great as my goals were, they were literally impossible to achieve from a sheer volume standpoint. With all I had going on in my life, I couldn’t maintain the focus to achieve all of them to the level of expectation I have for myself. So, like the rational human mind says, “forget it”.
After that, I became the “New Years Resolutions are bullshit, if something is important to you, start now” guy. I still largely am that guy for myself personally, but I also understand the value of the “New Year” for many people to flip the page and go after a new endeavor, whether that be related to their health, family, business, etc.
If you want to be a New Years resolutioner, here’s the “Pro” Tip:
Unless you’ve proven to yourself that you can accomplish a variety of significantly important goals at the same time, cut your New Years Goal list by a minimum of 50%.
And take whatever metric you have for your goals and cut it by a minimum of 50%, too.
So, let’s say you have 6 goals written on your 2024 Goal Sheet, right out of the gate, choose the 3 most important of those 6, and get rid of the other 3 (for now).
From there, if the goal is let’s say, “Get into shape and I will do this by working out 5 days a week”.
If you’re not currently working out, that’s a lofty goal.
Start with working out 2 days per week. This is more realistic and will help you build the discipline to maintain the actions that will drive you to your goals.
The key with goal setting is setting yourself up to win so that you can the leverage the positive feedback loop to keep going.
Start small. Prove you can do it. Add slowly.
