It’s a new year and back again is talk of resolutions and goal setting and planning our vision for the year ahead. On this journey that we call life, it’s important to periodically determine our goals and what direction we are headed in. But it’s also really important to recognize our progress over perfection and growth over goals. How can we do both?
Here are some thoughts:
1st: Take some time to review the year that is ending or just ended. What happened during the year? Did you have goals and expectations that didn’t meet the targets? (Of course you did, we all do!) Can you identify what may have prevented you from meeting the targets you had set? What went right? What progress did you make? What accomplishments happened that you did not plan on? How did you grow in the past year? And, most importantly, what are you grateful for in the past year?
2nd: Set your goals for the new year. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to experience? Check out my Steps for Successful Goals guide for more details about goals.
3rd: Set up tools to help with your goals. This can be a vision board, a journal, post-it notes, alarms, apps on your devices, courses, books, podcasts, or anything else you may find helpful. Tools should help remind you easily and frequently and should assist you with creating new habits that support your goals.
4th: Recognize and believe in progress over perfection and growth over goals. No one is perfect and no one achieves every single goal (especially not on the timeline that is expected). If you didn’t achieve your goal when planned, or if you feel like you aren’t going to achieve it and feel like giving up, identify where you made progress. Did you: Take steps forward? Learn something new? Change a bad habit or create a good one? Achieve a part of the goal? It’s more important that you are moving forward in a positive direction and growing as a person than it is to meet every goal you set.
5th: Don’t forget to celebrate all the successes – even the small ones!
You can do these steps in the new year, new season, new month, or any time you want to start fresh. It’s not a failure to start over, especially when you are building upon lessons from previous attempts.
Wishing you the best in achieving your goals AND recognizing progress over perfection.
To Your Success!
-Cheryl
