As we enter 2024, many individuals will be motivated to create a list of New Year’s resolutions. While it’s an energizing activity to set goals for the new year, I want to remind everyone of a few important points to remember before setting ambitious goals.
Be Realistic
I tend to look at the future through rose-coloured glasses. However, the future rarely holds exactly what we expect, so it’s important to remember to be open-minded about the time ahead. The problem with being an idealist is having the perfect image of what you desire in your mind, but forgetting the amount of demanding work that’s required to reach that level. As important as optimism and hope are to have, a bit of realism along with these feelings can be immensely helpful in keeping our expectations sensible. Therefore, I suggest having a realistic outlook at the same time as being hopeful to ensure that you’ll be able to reach your ambitions.
Set Smaller Goals
An enormous goal will feel like loads of work and can be discouraging. Besides, achieving big goals is typically a gradual process that comes from a series of small successes. Therefore, it’s likely that creating numerous smaller goals will be more effective in leading you to your top objective. Setting smaller aims will create the sensation that you have less weight on your shoulders and the satisfaction of completing tasks will keep your motivation high. Dedicating a small amount of time to your goal frequently will achieve greater results than draining your energy by practising for long hours and taking even longer breaks in between. Learning a skill or achieving a success usually requires consistent effort rather than only a day of challenging work.
Failure is Okay
Not all of our resolutions will go the way we planned at the beginning of the year and that’s okay. This connects back to being realistic. While it’s helpful to stay hopeful, expecting some failure is helpful as well. There’s a considerable chance of failure when an individual is new to a skill or hobby. Being unsuccessful in reaching a goal doesn’t show that you don’t have any chances left; it’s simply a sign for you to continue trying to perfect what you desire to achieve. I suggest viewing failure as nothing more than a mere lesson for the next attempt. This applies to me as well because failing can be frustrating when one’s expectations are too high. Don’t be discouraged if you do not meet your goals as planned. Let ambition lead you to keep trying. If you’re meant to reach that goal, you will.
Throughout the year, it’s possible that an individual’s ambitions may change, leading them to rethink their New Year’s resolutions. This is totally fine because the point of resolutions is to reach goals your heart desires and if those aspirations no longer align with you, it’s good to set new goals. One more crucial point to remember is that resolutions don’t have to be set on New Year’s; you can encourage yourself to start pursuing new goals at any time of the year.