Welcome to my blog! I will be focusing on some New Year’s Resolutions I created and how I will be achieving these goals. When originally creating my resolutions back in late December, I focused on large aspects of my life that I wanted to improve in. Although there are more areas, the bulk of my resolutions fall into fitness, general skills, health, academic, social, and other goals. In past years when creating resolutions, I have had trouble fulfilling all of them and ended up focusing on just a few. This year, I am trying a few new techniques to ensure that I do not forget about all the goals I created. Every day, I receive a reminder on my phone when I wake up to remind me of the changes I am making to my everyday life. Every 2 weeks, I receive a reminder for me to check my resolutions and record an update on how I am doing in each of them and to make changes to my habits accordingly.
In each post, I will focus on a different resolution and provide details on how I am making changes to attain it. In this introductory post, I will discuss some of the benefits of goal setting and some tips to help achieve goals.
According to a CBS news poll taken in December 2021, only 29% of Americans are creating New Year’s Resolutions this year, a 14% drop from the previous year. Many do not realize the numerous advantages to creating and working towards resolutions. The process of making goals for a new year forces you to reflect on the past year and decide what has been working to improve yourself and what has been holding you back from growth. It also allows you to think about what you want to get out of the future year. We all want things in life, and goal setting is a great way to get from where we are to where we want to be. The start of the new year is a great time for people who have not been happy with themselves to start out fresh. The creation of realistic goals also motivates people to work hard, which improves their performance.
Setting and achieving goals gives people a sense of accomplishment and self-mastery, ultimately leading to a happier state of mind. Locke, a leader in goal-setting theory, found that over 90% of the time, “goals that were specific and challenging, but not overly challenging, led to higher performance when compared to easy goals or goals that were too generic such as a goal to do your best”. It is important to set goals that are both possible for you to achieve and specific enough so that you know exactly what you need to do. Saying you want to drink more water is vague, but saying you want to drink 64 ounces of water each day is specific. Saying you want to drink 160 ounces of water each day seems great, but it is not realistic for most people. Lastly, noting how you plan to achieve your goal is very important for success (more to come on this).
Creating New Year’s Resolutions is a great way to reflect on the past and improve yourself in the future, and I suggest that everybody tries it, even if it is just one goal.
I really enjoyed this blog! I really agree with everything that was said in it, as this year, I actually want to keep on with my resolutions instead of stopping them. I really liked the information about setting goals that are specific and realistic. I feel like to have the motivation to start and keep going with it is to know that you are actually capable of these resolutions. I also like the idea of setting a reminder on your phone of what to do. I have never thought of that and might even think of trying that myself. Organization is key to these types of resolutions, so this is a smart idea to keep up with them. I really enjoyed your first blog and can’t wait to read the rest of it!
I really enjoy this blod. Despite the fact it is more so a journal of sorts for you to focus on your own growth, I believe it will be very beneficial for people as well. I like what you said about resolutions being too vague. I myself am a victim of this and this made me realize I need to be more specific about what I want. I am very excited to see you reach your goals and great job on your blog.
I think it’s really cool that you are making these goals. I remember learning about SMART goals in high school and this is basically along the lines of that. While I don’t make new years resolutions, I have a list of ongoing goals on my computer which I like to update a couple of times a year. But I follow the same tips that you brought up and based on the data you provided, should be something others start thinking about too!
I love New Year’s Resolutions! I really enjoy hearing about the goals that other people have for themselves, and it’s the one kind of goal that I enjoy setting for myself. I don’t usually tend to think of myself as a goal-oriented person, at least not with long term goals. I usally end up forgetting about the goals that I set, or else I just rush to complete them if they’re a sort of “task”. However, I really like the idea of setting out to better yourself over the course of the year.