Happy New Year everyone! It’s hard to believe that 2019 is here already. It’s always so exciting standing on the edge of a brand new year, fresh and clean like a blank page. One of the things I love the most about the start of a new year is just how full of potential it is. All the wonderful and exciting things you’ve been dreaming about for so long could come true. It’s such an amazing feeling. Of course, the only problem is that all that unlimited potential means that literally anything could happen, which makes it a lot harder for those specific dreams of yours to come true, unless, that is, you decide that you are going to make the a reality. Now is the perfect time to commit to achieving at least one of your dreams this year. Everyone is setting goals and making resolutions. You’ve got a clean slate. It’s the perfect time to set yourself a goal to achieve one of those dreams you’ve been dreaming about for so long.
I love this quote from Tony Robbins that says, “Setting goals is the first step into turning the invisible into the visible”. It’s the whole principle behind making new year’s resolutions. personally, I rarely make any of those. But at the beginning of every year I like to set myself some goals, particularly writing goals. What do I want to write? What do I want to achieve? What am I hoping to get out of this year? It’s how I keep making sure that my dream of being a writer is being turned into reality. Last year I made myself the goal of publishing my first book, and I did! As this quote from Napoleon Hill says, “A goal is a dream with a deadline”. The deadline is the end of the year. 365 days to accomplish your goals. Seems fair to me. What is this the deadline for you in this case? Writing a book? Winning NaNoWriMo? Creating a habit of writing every day? What does achieving this goal look like?
The other important part of setting goals at the beginning of the year of course, is figuring out how I’m going to achieve them. After all, the reason that so many New Year’s resolutions fail is because people don’t always take the time to figure out what is involved with actually achieving them. If I’m going to write a book, I have to figure out when I’m going to do it, how long it’s going to take, when I need to start planning. What months are things going to happen in? How much time do I need for the whole process? How much extra time am I going to give myself as a buffer? Something is always bound to come up that will slow the whole process down. A month might be busier than I anticipated, or the task might be more complicated than I thought it was, or it simply might take me longer than I calculated. giving myself a little extra time really takes the stress off and makes achieving the goal a little more realistic in the long run.
Now is the time to start chasing those dreams and setting those goals. 2019 isn’t the only thing that is filled with unlimited potential here. You are too. This year, let’s work towards making our greatest dreams a reality, let’s set ourselves some goals for this year, make ourselves some road maps, and set out on the adventure together. I believe in all of us and our ability to achieve amazing things and hit our goals this year, whether those are big, life changing dreams, like publishing a book, or smaller, every day steps, like picking up a new habit. If you’d like to read a few more of my thoughts and tips on setting better goals, I have a whole post dedicated to that. Hopefully you’ll find something in that post there that will spark some ideas on how to achieve your goals in 2019. And, if you feel like sharing, why not let me know what some of your goals for the new year are in the comments down below? I would love to chat with you
