This post is from our regular Wednesday (Tuesday, today!) contributor, Erin.
I have to be honest with you all – I’m not that big on making New Year’s resolutions. Research says that only 8% of people make their resolutions a reality. Isn’t that a little sad?
The Forbes article cited points to the fact that people aren’t setting themselves up for success when making their New Year’s resolutions. It seems like making realistic goals is a problem for many.
Let’s set this straight early on – it’s not enough to declare a goal. You can’t just say, “I’m going to pay off my debt this year!” and hope that it will magically happen. All goals take hard work, which means you have to put in the effort to reach your desired destination.
I really like this quote for that reason: A goal without a plan is just a wish. – Antoine de Saint Exupéry
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a huge fan of planning. So while I’m not big on New Years resolutions, I am big on setting actionable and attainable goals for myself throughout the year.
In light of that (and because I want to see you all succeed next year), I’m going to share some of the best ways you can set yourself up for success when it comes to setting goals for the New Year.
You Absolutely Need to Create a Plan
Was that quote above not enough?! DC highlighted the amazing method of using the financial bridge technique to accomplish your goals. In it, he detailed the groundwork you can use to build a bridge to your own goals.
Simply put, you need to think things through. If your plan is to pay off your debt this year, you need to ask yourself how you can accomplish that.
Sometimes, this is best done by working backwards. Say you have $20,000 in debt. If you wanted to pay it off in one year, you’d need to put $1,666 toward it every single month.
Can you realistically afford that? If not, you either need to re-think your plan, or figure out a way you can earn extra money to afford such a payment.
Don’t Overwhelm Yourself
I used to be in the habit of setting monthly goals for myself, like many other bloggers. However, I found that I was setting too many goals.
Quality over quantity reigns supreme even here. There are some people who love to tackle a big list of goals, but I know I’m not alone in getting overwhelmed when my to-do list is too long.
You don’t want your list of goals to overwhelm you to the point of procrastination. If you’re forgetting or avoiding your resolution(s) a few months into the year, there’s a problem.
Choose just one or two overarching goals you want to work on, like creating new skills to get a different job, paying off a certain amount of debt, starting a side hustle, or building an emergency fund.
Then, break those down into smaller goals you can work on throughout the year. Which brings us to our next tip…
Take Small Steps and Work Slowly
Larger goals should and will take more time and effort to reach. You can’t expect things to happen overnight.
I know it’s easy to get caught up in the initial excitement – everyone is making goals and visualizing how awesome the year is going to go for them in the first few weeks of January.
But it’s important to pace yourself. The excitement is prone to wearing off. You don’t want to go in with guns blazing and then burn out in a few months.
You need to stay committed, and the easiest way to do that is to combine having a narrow focus and taking smaller steps.
Going back to the goals I mentioned in the last section, you should be able to divide them into smaller subsections so that you can simply focus on the smaller steps each month.
For example, if you want to start a side hustle, you can set these smaller goals in January: figuring out exactly what services or products you’re going to offer, registering a domain, and thinking about how you’re going to market your side hustle.
In February, you can spend time figuring out who your audience/customers are, and begin creating content for your website.
In March, your goals might be to start promoting your content across social media, and developing more of a presence throughout the web (or your neighborhood).
As you can see, you’re making gradual progress without driving yourself crazy. This is the best way to realistically make your New Year’s resolution a reality.
Ignore the Phrase “New Year’s Resolution”
How can this help? I’ve read and heard many people talking about the fact that we shouldn’t be waiting until January 1st to make our resolutions known. There’s no reason to wait until a set designated date to start working on the things that matter to us.
After all, it’s just another day – what’s the real significance?
We all seem to think of a new anything as a clean slate – a new day, week, month, or year is a new beginning, in a sense. While it’s great to feel like we can “start over”, this mindset can do more harm than good.
Think about it – if you’ve blown your budget halfway through the month, are you more apt to say, “Ah well, it’s already a disaster, what does it matter if I overspend some more? The damage is already done. Next month will be better.” Or do you think, “I messed up, but I’m getting back on the horse as soon as possible. I shouldn’t give up now just because of some setbacks.”
I think a decent amount of us are prone to falling for the first thought. We place so much importance on the future being our chance at improvement or redemption, but that’s the wrong thought process to have.
There is absolutely nothing holding us back from starting over right now. There’s no reason to put things off until tomorrow, or next year.
Break yourself out of that habit and start actively making plans to reach your goals today. You should be aiming to make each and every year awesome all year long. Not just sporadically throughout the year when the inspiration strikes.
___________
I admit, much of this is easier said than done. Goals are easier to accomplish when you have a burning desire to see them through to completion, and sometimes passion isn’t enough to carry us. That’s where plans come in!
Regardless, knowing your why behind your goals is important, too, so I encourage you to reflect on what you hope to accomplish next year as well as why you want to accomplish it.
How do you set goals? Have you made good on past New Year’s resolutions? What will you be working on in 2015?
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This year I am breaking all of my goals down into the daily checklists of things I need to be doing to accomplish them. I can already tell it’s helping.
In my two years of learning to be fiscally responsible, I can totally vouch for the success of the plan listed above. Especially the “take small steps and work slowly” part. It’s the repeated, continued, little steps that add up to big success.
I have some goals for 2015, but they aren’t necessarily “resolutions.” I mainly just want to stay the course and continue improving.
We’re not into resolutions either as I’ve always just noticed there’s no skin in the game for them most times. We do have a number of goals, but they’re quantifiable and have a plan involved to reach them – of course, plans never change. ;)
Definitely prefer goals over resolutions. I like to have goals be detailed so I have the ability to check in on progress during the year.
“Take Small Steps” -> YES! I listened to motivational speaker recently said to Dream Big, but start small. You have to break down your big goal into manageable pieces in order to make that dream a reality. This fits well with my methodology as a software engineer…we take big projects, and break them down into pieces. Build one piece at a time, and eventually you’ve got something big. :)
I had many goals last year but only one new year’s resolution (which was the same one I had the year before) and that was to not get any parking tickets. Success! My goals however, that was tough and the year changed dramatically half way through and affected my financial plans. This year I may set just a couple overarching goals and make a lot more mini monthly goals. That way I can deal with what is more in the present than in the long future.
My goal is to make more lists. Last year was the first year that I slacked on list making, and it was my most backsliding year ever. I think I needed a “list vacation”, but freewheeling is not a good idea for me because I need focus. Super tip, as always, Erin! :)
I never use the words New Years Resolution either. It has never worked for me so I just set life goals and thats it. People should also make realistic goals for themselves. Too many of us shoot for goals that is just impossible to complete due to pur personal habits or daily life routines. I like to keep my goals simple and add part 1, part 2, and even a part 3 to a specific goal to make sure I can eat cake and celebrate all the way.
We’re definitely going to have a “stagnant” year focusing on growing our income. The past couple years have all consisted of HUGE changes (two babies, moving across the country, buying and selling a home, etc), so I’m excited to just sit and slow down! That being said, I have big plans for the blog and my husband has big plans for his business. Hopefully it will be a year of success!
Mark@BareBudgetGuy Love it, Mark! Well, I love checklists, and find they’re really helpful if you can stick to a strict schedule like that.
Laurie TheFrugalFarmer Yes! Even though it doesn’t seem like you’re making much progress in the moment, the little steps truly do help. It’s not good to overwhelm yourself and try to rush to the finish line.
Holly at ClubThrifty I don’t think of my goals as resolutions, either. It’s just one of those buzzwords around the New Year. I’m sure you’ll continue doing awesome things in 2015!
FrugalRules Ha, of course not! Even though things do change, I think it’s still worth having plans. That said, it’s also important to know when they’re not working or when they need to be left behind, and that’s something I still struggle with.
DebtDiscipline Checking in on progress is essential!
DebtChronicles I like that, Travis! I do have a tendency to dream big, but that can lead to feeling lost as to how to get to where I want to be. Breaking things down makes it a lot easier to succeed.
Beachbudget I am glad you didn’t get any parking tickets! I can’t imagine living somewhere and being paranoid about parking all the time. :/ I really like that thought – having mini-goals every month is awesome, and I do think it’ll help with focusing on what’s going on at the current time.
kay ~ lifestylevoices.com I like that goal, though I’m always making lists…whenever I feel like I have too much going on, I break everything down into a list of some sort of list. That said, I can see how they can be a tad restrictive. I’ve struggled with being Type A and wanting to go with the flow more often.
petrish Haha, I love the last part! That’s a smart way to do it. Making changes and establishing new habits is hard, and I think a lot of people underestimate what it takes. You really have to be committed, and reflecting and breaking things up into parts is a great way to stay focused.
Sarah Brooks You’ve definitely had a lot of changes! I hope everything works out in your favor next year. Your blog has been a great addition to my daily reading and I’m sure it will only grow!
The 8% figure seems surprisingly high to be honest! Just based on me, my friends, and family I would have guessed a much lower number ;) My goal this year is to average two posts a week on my blog. Last year I only did a little over one post per week and I’d like to step it up a notch. Now I just need to find the time…
Thomas at ineedmoneyASAP Finding the time to write for my blog has been a challenge lately, but being honest, I also haven’t made it a huge priority. My best advice is if you can get on a roll and write a bunch of posts at once, then you’ll be able to schedule them out and not have to worry about it. Writing ahead works well, you just have to get in the groove!
Awesome article Erin! Agreed with looking to reverse engineering way to plan goals.. That way you can break it down how it needs to work and break into chunks..
A big thing I’ll be working on is starting to build out a path to financial freedom through investment, this is really part of the journey.. It’s important for me to enjoy that journey with travel, partying, playing sports and catching up with friends.. I know that sounds a bit vague but the first step is to figure out what that number is and the work out how to get there
Would be interested to hear your goals Erin? If you are happy/willing to share
mycareercrusade Nice! I wish you luck on your investment planning. You’re very right that the first step is figuring out how much you need. That tends to scare some people away, which is why I’m a big believer in taking small steps. I’m sure you’ll have no problem with that!
I’m not sure I can really classify this as a goal, but my main focus for the next few months is going to be on figuring out the type of work I truly enjoy doing (concerning freelancing). There’s going to be a lot of reflecting going on!
2015 will be a big year for me. I have a few goals that I will achieve. Having a detailed plan works for me. I completed 55% of my 2014 goals. This year I’m shooting for at least 70.
Erin @ Journey to Saving mycareercrusade Thanks Erin, I know that it may not be easy or happen overnight but achieving great things is/was never easy..
That’s cool to hear and goals I feel can be about anything that is important to you.. Sure we’ll hear about it on here! :) Good luck too
I’m personally not big on new years’ resolutions, either! Actually creating a plan and not overwhelming yourself is the key to achieve your goals.