Make It Happen // - On/Off Duty

If you are an avid blog reader like myself, you may have noticed that there was quite a theme to many fellow bloggers content last week – new year resolutions.

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It’s been inspiring to dive deep into some of my fellow blogger babes posts on their goals, intentions and resolutions for the new year. Everyone has set some pretty amazing goals for themselves and honestly it makes me proud to say that women really do kick ass.

However some of you may have noticed that mine have been missing from the blog and there’s been a good reason for it -I haven’t made any yet. For the first time in my adult life, I haven’t written down a single goal or aspiration for the new year and I’m 100% okay with it.

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While the first of the year is the most convenient time of the year to give yourself a “fresh start”, it can also be one of the most stressful. Between the excitement that the end of the year holiday’s bring to the hustle and bustle of the end of the year, the stress really piles on. To then wake up one morning after a flurry of activity and mentally shift to hit the reset button, just seems dramatic.

I’m not one to say that I haven’t thought of any goals or resolutions for the new year, that would be a lie, however I’m taking a different approach to my 2018 goal setting. I’m giving myself the whole month of January to really meditate on what I really want out of my life in 2018.

To really set myself up for success, I’m taking the following 4 step approach to setting achievable yet manageable goals for 2018.

EVALUATE & REFLECT

Spend 5-10 minutes each day to brain dump your thoughts into a journal. It’s a great way to get things off your mind and allows you to start to notice some patterns. Unhappy more days than not at work? Has running a 5K been on your bucket list?

Spend time to evaluate different aspects of your life and ask yourself “am I happy with this?”. This exercise is a great way to create a baseline for what’s important to you and what isn’t. You’ll never know where you want to go, if you don’t know where to start.

DECIDE & DEFINE

The best part of being human is the fact that we innately are always looking to improve ourselves. We have hopes, wishes, and dreams that consistently fill out heads and motivate ourselves to do better.

When you take a look at all your personal hopes and dreams, ask yourself “what do I really want?”. In doing so, you are able to define and decide exactly what you want to achieve in the short and the long term. Your highest priority item should be your most achievable yet ambitious goal.

GET SMART

Now here I’m kicking it back to my professional Human Resources Manager self to talk about S.M.A.R.T. goals – if you work in Corporate American, you probably have heard of them.

There is no way around it, setting up S.M.A.R.T. goals is the best way to break down your goals into more achievable plans of actions. What are S.M.A.R.T. goals you ask?

SPECIFIC – Get specific with your goals and write down exactly how you hope to feel once you achieve your goal.

MEASURABLE – You need a way to measure your goal, so on those days when you feel like you are just spinning your wheels, you can look back at all the progress you made to get to the point your in now!

ATTAINABLE – No matter what good intentions you have, your goal has to be attainable. It’s the biggest reason why most people fail to achieve their goals.

REALISTIC – You have to be realistic with your goals. The best saying in the world is that “you have to learn to crawl before you can walk”. Be real with yourself and make sure that your goal is one that you realistically achievable by you.

TIME BOUND – To keep yourself on track, you have to put a timeframe on your goal. It’s much easier to talk yourself out of doing something when you can put it off to another day. Treat your goal like an appointment that you can’t miss!

KICK ASS & TAKE NAMES

Start working your plan and celebrate the little milestones along the way! Tell your friends about your goals to, talk about them and encourage each other along the way. It’s so much easier to do anything when you have a support system that believes in you along the way.

With that being said, I’m looking forward to really starting to put some ideas to paper and creating a plan for myself to really hit the ground running. 2018 is a milestone year for me and I plan to make sure that I really put my stamp on it.