Thursday, 2 January 2014

New Year’s Resolutions vs. Goals

I personally do not make New Year Resolutions. Never really have. I think perhaps for me it is mostly the time constraint when we make them, only once a year and at the beginning of the year. I like the flexibility to make these all year long and start and finish accordingly.

Instead I make regular and consistent goals. I remember at one time I had like 5 or 6 goals competing at the same time. That may be a little excessive and is not for everyone, but I do recommend making goals.
I have learned; we all work differently. What works for me, may not work for you. We need to find what motivates us personally and work within that. We need to learn and experiment what works and does not work and once we find what does work run with it. This whole idea of boxing us into the same processes works for some, but it definitely does not work for everyone.

I am a very driven person. Sometimes a little too driven that I can get so focused on the task or goal at hand and forget things that need attention. The thing that has made me more and more driven is achieving my goals. It is exciting and it motivates me to make another goal that is attainable and I can reach. I know some people reward themselves once they do reach a goal and if that is what it takes to motivate you than that is a great idea. I personally have never really rewarded myself for goals attained; just hitting them was reward enough for me.

The thing I have done with my goals is if something got in the way and I had to adjust the deadline, I just move it and keep striving to meet it. The other thing I have done is that sometimes I did not have a set deadline, just a project or task I wanted to complete before such big event happened in my life. I know that may not be recommended by the official “Making Proper Goals” department, but it does work for me and I have attained those goals. I have also realized that in order to complete goals some part of the process to attain it is out of our hands. For example, when you want to buy a house you can make the goal of saving for a down payment (and specifying the exact amount to save), find specific houses to buy, contact banks and mortgage companies to receive a mortgage but the approval of the mortgage is out of your hands and the whole process in general may take longer than expected. That is one reason I believe flexibility is needed. Another reason is for areas in our lives that will take a while to achieve the ultimate goal. Raising kids is a good example of this. I have specific goals in raising my daughter but some of them will not be achieved until she is in adulthood. Also we all know with kids that they may not always work with us in achieving these goals on a consistent, regular basis, but it is the overall process in this area that counts; which is why flexibility is key.

The other thing is I do not do is write them down. I know it is recommended and I know some people may need to do that, but for me it is continually processing in my brain and I am continually finding ways to meet my goal that I do not need to write it down to remember what my goal was.

I have also had minuscule goals and huge goals. It did not matter the size of the goal, just making and reaching them is what mattered.


The important thing is that we make, strive and complete our goals, however way works for us.

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