Welcome to 2018!
I can’t believe it’s that time of the year again… that time where I have to pause and think before writing the date… 20 and… 20 and… 18!
Well if you’re anything like the rest of the population, you’ll be taking some time to think about what you want to get out of the New Year, and setting some New Years Resolutions, if so here’s some tips for you to stay on track and achieve them;
Write them down
There’s two benefits to writing your goals down. Firstly it gives it more of a commitment. Rather than just thinking, this would be nice, you’ve taken the time to write your goal out. I also love looking back over past goals, it’s amazing when you forget a goal and looking back you realise how much you did achieve.
Get specific
It’s important to get specific! in my First Home Buyer’s Course (and Program) I talk about how much, Of What, By When. Knowing exactly how much of what by when helps you to plan the steps you need to take and it also helps you know when you reach your goal.
If you say I want to save money this year and after a week you’ve put aside $20.00 then save to say you reached your goal. However say I want to save $5000 by 31/12/2018, well that means you need to increase that $20.00 to $96.15 a week to reach your goal.
Find your why
This is another important step and it’s so commonly missed. The whole reason you want to achieve this resolution in the first place. For example not many people want to save $5000 in a year, but a lot of people may want to have the $5000 to go on their dream holiday at the start of 2019. So make sure you spend some time thinking about why this is your New Years Resolution in the first place.
Track your goal
Hands up who has announced a New Years Resolutions to the world on January 1 and never given it another thought for the rest of the year? guilty!
If it’s important enough to you in January it should still be important throughout the year so make sure you’re keeping yourself on track. This doesn’t have to mean graphs or excel spreadsheets (although who doesn’t love an Excel spreadsheet) but as long as you know throughout the year if you’re on track to reach your goal. And if you’re not on track, what has to change?
Make them achievable
If your New Years Resolution is unachievable then why is it a New Years Resolution? It might be a Resolution to be debt free (wouldn’t that be nice) so rather than say ‘I want to be debt free by 2019’ you might need to break it down to achievable chunks over a slightly longer period.
Live them
Similar to tracking your goal, if it’s not in the front of mind each day you can guarantee it will slip away and be forgotten. So do something to remind yourself everyday of what you want to achieve. This might be putting a photo on the fridge of you on that dream holiday. Each time you go the fridge you will be reminded of your goal and why you want it.
Reward yourself
This year I wrote an E Book and my goal was to sell one copy, well that happened two days after it was published and rather than celebrate this little win I was straight back to what the next goal was, and the next and the next. Sometimes we need to celebrate those little victories, after all, isn’t it all about the journey not the destination?
Happy New Year’s!