The embodiment of “New Year, New Me” comes around again as 2024 starts. With that, we start seeing an influx of people hitting the gym, trying to attend classes, and starting new hobbies. However, many people find it difficult to stick to these goals, falling back into the comfort of their old habits. Within a month or two, we’ll start seeing the gradual decline of these resolution-ers, with the new year’s progression taking away the motivation we see.
Thus, it’s important to structure your goals right and make them personalized to the areas you want to grow in. Recently, there’s been talk about the five main categories of goals. These categories are health, personal development, academic or career growth, finance, and relationships. These areas help people break down their goals into different areas to focus on, creating a well-rounded individual. In addition, this strategy prevents people from overwhelming themselves with too many goals and spreading themselves too thin. Five is the perfect sweet spot, allowing everyone to focus on multiple aspects of their lives with an emphasis on improvement rather than creating a whole other person.
The first step in sticking with New Year’s resolutions is to break down your goals into smaller steps. Rather than creating goals like “going to the gym more” and “getting better grades,” it’s important to make them tangible and quantifiable. Thus, “going to the gym more” can turn into “lifting weights every other day for 30 minutes” and “getting better grades” can turn into “reviewing lecture notes and slides for an hour each day.” This makes it easier to track progress and feel a sense of accomplishment every time you stick to your routine. In addition, it’s important to start small and create smaller goals rather than bigger goals that are daunting. Slowly working your way up and making progress will always last longer than a giant push at the start and becoming burdened with the effort it requires. Over time, these goals turn into habits that will become a part of your daily life.
It’s important to keep the end goal in mind. It takes discipline to end up with the grades you want and the weight you want to lift. As long as your resolutions have purpose and you feel like you are becoming a better person, then don’t forget that end goal as you traverse the path to get there. Change doesn’t happen overnight but hard work does pay off in the long run. Good luck and have a great rest of the year!