January 2024: New Year, New Focus

The New Year is always a time of reflection and initiating new habits, but if you’re not intentional about your goals and your time you’ll fall into the trap that 99% of everyone else falls into: going back old habits within 30 days. 

The problem is that most people don’t take the time to write out their goals, create action steps, and then devise a clear and focused plan to meet those goals.  I’m here to help make sure that 2024 is your most productive year yet! 

First, you need clear direction.  Keeping your goals in your head does no good.  Block out 2 hours this week to write down your goals.  I suggest writing down 1 goal in each of the following areas: 

• Physical Health: What new daily habit do you want to start and continue that will enhance your physical activity?  What is one physical activity you want to try?   
  • Examples: walking every day for 20 minutes, learning how to play pickleball, completing a 10k 

• Mental Health: How can you focus on your mental health this year?  Is there a daily habit you can start? What makes you feel relaxed, energized, and focused? 
  • Examples: getting a massage once every month, meditating every morning for 5 minutes, scheduling periods of solitude each week 

• Spiritual Health: How can you grow this year spiritually?  Do you want to be more active with your religious organization?   
  • Examples: join a religious study group, read the Bible daily, set aside daily time for prayer 

• Relationships/Social Wellness: Who do you want to develop a deeper relationship with? Do you need a more supportive social network?  Do you need more family time? 
  • Examples: schedule date nights with your significant other each month, join a local club/group to meet new people, be more intentional about reaching out to current and old friends, remove toxic relationships from your life 

• Leisure/Hobbies: Do you need to commit to more leisure activities? Do you want to try a new hobby?  Get back to an old hobby that you’ve let fall by the wayside? 
  • Examples: learn how to knit, return to playing golf, read more books 

• Professional: How can you grow in your current field?  Is it time to make a career switch?  Time to find a different job? 
  • Examples: get a specialty certification, research other careers, apply to an academic program, conduct a job search 

• Intellectual: What do you want to learn this year?  What area do you want to focus your learning?  How can you continue growing and learning?  
  • Examples: learn a new language, read a certain number of non-fiction books, join a book club 

• Personal: Do you want to feel less overwhelmed?  Do you need to reduce your commitments?  Do you need more time scheduled for self-care? 
  • Examples: remove one monthly commitment, resign from a board, reduce the number of weekly activities your child is allowed to participate in, reduce daily screen time 

• Financial: Do you want to become debt free?  Pay off a student loan? Save for a house this year? 
  • Examples: pay off your car loan, eat out less in restaurants, find a side hustle for extra income, curb personal spending 
  • Examples: pay off your car loan, eat out less in restaurants, find a side hustle for extra income, curb personal spending 

You’ll notice that there might be some overlap with goals, and that’s ok!  For example, maybe you have a personal goal to not schedule anything over 1 weekend per month.  This will allow you to focus more on family time, spending more time outdoors doing physical activity, and will also boost your mood!  BAM!  You’ve just addressed possible goals in the areas of physical health, social wellness, leisure, personal, and maybe even financial by spending less money during these monthly breaks.  This doesn’t mean you should have the same goal in 4-5 areas.  Let’s not cheat our way through 2024.  Pick one area for that goal and then write out goals in each of the other areas. 

So now that you have your goal ideas for each area, the challenge is to write clear goals that follow the popular SMART framework, which will help you create clear, focused, and realistic goals that you are more likely to accomplish.  The SMART framework stands for: 

 Specific: 

• Be clear, focused, and well-defined with what you want to accomplish. 

Measurable: 

• Goals should be quantifiable so that progress can be tracked. This is how you will know when you have actually achieved your goal!   

Achievable: 

• Ensure that your goal is realistic and attainable. While it’s good to set ambitious goals, they should still be within reach or you will quickly lost motivation. Consider the resources, skills, and time available.  The challenge is to make it hard enough that you can feel proud for your accomplishment, but also easy enough that you can realistically achieve it. 

Relevant: 

• Goals should be relevant to your life, your values, and aligned with broader objectives and a longer-term vision. Goals need to be meaningful to you so you can remain motivated.   

Time-bound: 

• Set a specific timeframe or deadline for achieving the goal. This creates a sense of urgency and helps in monitoring your progress. Without a timeframe, there may be a lack of motivation or a tendency to procrastinate.  I suggest starting with goals that have a deadline of the end of the year.  Then, you can work backwards to determine how to break down that longer annual goal into quarterly, monthly, and then weekly action items.  Once you have it broken down into small steps, the goal doesn’t seem so daunting! 

Here’s an example: 

Non-SMART Goal: Improve physical health. 

SMART Goal: I will complete my first 10k by December 31, 2024 with a goal time of 65 minutes or less. 

Here’s how you can break this goal down into some easier action steps over the next 4-5 months: 

1. Research local 10k races and pick one to register for that is at least 6 months from today. 

2. Register for the race. (Now you are financially invested and further committed!) 

3. Find and print a 16-week training plan. 

4. Look at your calendar and schedule your training runs 3-4 times per week.  This might mean you need to move other items around or even remove them completely from your schedule if they are no longer priorities and do not fit with your goals.  

5. Buy a new pair of running shoes. 

6. START! 

By applying the SMART criteria to goal-setting, you will create more focused, realistic, and actionable goals that increase the likelihood of your success.   

Tips for a successful January: 

1. Use a planner.  Don’t rely on your memory to track your tasks, appointments, reminders, and meeting notes.  Your memory isn’t as good as you think it is.  Get a planner- whether analog, digital, or a combination- and use it every single day, throughout the day.  My absolute favorite planner is the Full Focus Planner, which is part of a whole system.  I’ve been using the Full Focus System for the past 4 years and have never had such a productive period of time in my life.  It’s a quarterly planning system and worth every penny.  Check it out here: Full Focus Planner  

2. Protect your time.  Set boundaries so you can reach your goals.  Make sure you schedule time each week that is blocked out so you can focus on goal achievement.  If you aren’t intentional about your time, you will find yourself at the end of the day saying, “Where did the day go?  I didn’t get anything done!”  Not only do you need to schedule it, but you need to then protect what you’ve scheduled by saying no to anyone who tries to impeded on this.   

3. Keep your goals visible.  If you don’t have daily reminders of your goals to motivate you, it’s too easy to forget what you’re working for.  We often don’t see the very minuscule changes each day, but over time the changes are huge.  However, to see those huge changes we need to be consistent and disciplined.  Keeping your goals where you can see them each day is key.  I personally like to write short versions of them on a large poster-size sticky note and keep it on the wall of my office.  Do what works for you but keep it visible. 

4. Don’t tackle all your goals at once.  Gradually introduce them into your days and weeks.  You might have one goal for each area, but only pick 1-2 to focus on starting in January.  Going too big too fast only makes us burn out once that honeymoon period is over.  Start small and slowly build from there. 

5. Give yourself grace.  Did you have a goal to only drink alcohol on the weekends, but a bad Wednesday caused you to slip up?  It happens.  Tomorrow is a new day, and you’ll make better choices.  Give yourself grace, celebrate the small wins (and the big ones too!), and be grateful for all the positive things in your life.