Happy Monday, ladies! And Happy New Year! I’m so excited to be celebrating with you. Today I’m talking about resolutions: setting them, keeping them, and even sharing what mine are for this year. There’s a million people talking about resolutions right now, and many of them are helpful, but often overwhelming. So this post focuses on the two biggest determining factors for successful resolutions: your own personal trends, and goal checkpoints.

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REFLECT ON WHAT YOU ACCOMPLISHED LAST YEAR

Before you even decide on your resolutions, think about how you spent the last year. What were your resolutions? Did you accomplish them? If you did (or didn’t), why? This is super important because you can’t just change your whole personality in a night. Resolutions, goals, and change take time. So you need to build that time into your resolutions.

Let’s use weight loss for an example because it’s such a trendy resolution. Say you want to lose 50 pounds in 2017. Did you have the same resolution in 2016? If you did, why didn’t you succeed? Was it too hard to keep up with that? Maybe it’s because it was too much to make that big of a lifestyle change. So maybe your goal should be half that. You’ll see you get closer to your ultimate goal sooner and that will motivate you to continue.

By evaluating how you succeeded or didn’t last year, your own behavioral trends, and your own abilities, you’ll be able to make resolutions that are actually reasonable. And once you start making progress on those resolutions, you’ll find it easier to maintain that momentum to succeed in them.

SET SHORT-TERM GOALS THAT ADD UP TO YOUR RESOLUTIONS

Lofty goals are made up of smaller check points. No matter what your mission is, you can break it down into smaller steps. Even if you have a goal like get 10,000 Instagram followers or lose 50 pounds, you can set checkpoints that show you’re on track. Your mid-year goal might be 5,000 followers or 25 pounds. Divide that by 2 again and you have your 3 month goal.

From here, you can chose to set a monthly goal if that will work for you. I personally recommend that for something like weight loss, but not for building a Instagram following, an email list, or anything not 100% under your control. Next you need to develop a strategy for accomplishing your goal, whether that’s posting every day or a certain number of calories. You need to decide how often you need to work toward your goal and if that’s a reasonable commitment. If not, reevaluate your ultimate goal.

Always remember that things change. Maybe you become ill and can’t diet like you intend to, or someone hacks your account. Be okay with changing your ultimate resolution if necessary. Use the 3 month, 6 month, and 9 month markers to determine if it needs to change. If you adjust it for each month, you may find you scale based on a fluke rather than a true trend.

A few of my resolutions:

• Check my email daily. This one I’ll track by checking off in my agenda each day.
• Finally having whiter teeth. I’ll go in to depth for this one on Wednesday!
• Read 15 books this year. I’ll start by reading one per month in the busy months, and pick two short books to read in a single month a few times over.
• Get back to running at least once a week. I’ll start by going for one run in January, two in February, 3 in March, and 4 in April. June is my deadline.
• I want to grow my blog by growing my social media. I’ve developed extensive social media strategies, deadlines for checking and reviewing those strategies, and have made some lofty and more reasonable goals to keep me motivated.
• I’m finally ready to do my grad school applications, so I’ll start by isolating my schools and potential advisors, then start reaching out by the middle of the year. By September, I intend to have application packets ready to be submitted. And in the summer I will take the GRE’s.

What are your resolutions? And how to you plan on accomplishing them?

 
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Linked up with: Still Being Molly, Pink Sole, By Lauren M, Claire Justine, Elegantly Fashionable