New year’s resolutions are something the many of us make and don’t always stick to. Your new year’s goals (or any goals for that matter) should be something that you check in with and reflect on. Earlier this year I shared the personal and business goals I’d like to achieve in 2019. You can read the full post here, but to sum up they were: achieve my goal weight, have an art stall at the Southbank Collective Markets, write the outline for my first novel, improve on my traditional and digital artwork, and build my home business. Since it’s just getting into the third month of the year I thought it’d be a great time to check in with these goals to see how they’re progressing, and to make any notes and changes if they aren’t coming along quickly enough.
One by one I have re-read my goals and their sub-goals and looked at how I’ve decided to “measure” the success of the goals. From there, I can judge whether I will be on track to achieving the goal by the selected date (the end of 2019). For example, to achieve my goal weight, I believe I am on track with the amounts and types of exercises I have been doing. However, upon reflection, I know I can improve my diet to speed up my results. This sort of analysis can be done with all goals, no matter how big or small.
Now that I have gone through each of these goals and acknowledged how well I am going with them (by being as brutally honest with myself without being too harsh), I will address how I can improve the way I approach the goal. I will use my novel goal as an example. To be completely honest, I have added to the word count of my plot outline once, maybe twice, this year. Before I become discouraged with myself for barely chipping away at this goal, I have to ask myself why I haven’t wanted to write. I honestly believe it’s part of my artistic journey that I’m too scared to uncover (currently writing about artistic journey’s: stay tuned!) and also a matter of not finding the time to sit and grind on my computer.
To counteract these excuses and reasons why my goal isn’t underway to being achieved, I have devised an action plan to help. I have addressed that I can’t find the time to write and won’t make the time to do so, due to fear of the writing outcome. As a way to improve on this, I have decided to incorporate another goal into the mix: improving on my artistic skills! I would like to write detailed character profiles for the novel characters to understand who they are to write a better story. To encompass my artistic skills, I will draw the character to accompany the written profile. By doing this, I am bringing in another skill of mine that I have gained some confidence in to grant me the motivation to write the character profiles. Additionally, I will use my tablet to write/draw these profiles on the couch, as I tend to always navigate there when I’m supposed to be productive.
Reviewing and reflecting on your goals is a great way to ensure that they will be reached. You can do this with your 2019 goals, so to recap! I’ve gone back to where I wrote my 2019 goals and re-read them. I have reflected upon my year to date in relation to my goals and tracked just how much progress I have made. From there, if my progress has been minimal or can be improved upon, I devised a plan and strategy to better implement them into my lifestyle (nobody knows you better than you do. If you don’t like to wake up at 5am to go to the gym, then find another time to fit exercise into your lifestyle). I’ve just used my novel goal as an example, but I did do this for my other goals also! Keep chipping away at your goals!
