At the end comes a new beginning.
The year has almost come full cycle. January to December. Twelve months of being. Fifty-two weeks of dreaming. 365 days of living.
The saying, ‘the days are long but the years are short’ is truer now than ever before. I’ve noticed this quite a bit lately. The older I get the faster the year moves and often I feel as if I’m constantly playing catch up.
But what am I catching up to?
Our lives are paved with milestones. From when we’re babies it’s all about the first smile, the first step, the first word. It’s about starting school, making new friends, graduating high school, and picking a university degree.
As soon as those milestones get ticked off it’s being asked about meeting that special someone, getting engaged, getting married, having children.
It’s all supposed to be done by a certain age. But does it really?
There are many constraints and expectations that society, and often those closest to us, place on our lives. They want us to tick off the key events in our lives to satisfy their needs, their expectations, their beliefs of what the world should be like.
The world is an amazing and diverse place. We’re all different. We all have different timelines and different expectations of what we want our lives to be like.
The end of the year is a good time to reflect on that.
Having spent the past few days with family and friends, eating lots of food and drinking far too much wine, it’s been interesting to hear the varied perspectives on life, our dreams, and our goals.
One thing is certain, we all yearn for something.
This year I’ve learned that the grass is rarely greener on the other side. That the life people project to their friends is not always the one they are living. No one has the perfect existence. We all go through tough times, we all experience sadness and anger and frustration. We come across people we don’t get along with or who misunderstand us. Mistakes are made, lessons are learned. We all have our own hurdles to jump over and battles to fight.
Our story is our own.
It’s so easy to judge others because they don’t think or feel like we do. But do we know their history? Have we walked a mile in their shoes?
Nature and nurture. We are all victims to it. But we are not prisoners to it.
We are creatures of change even though sometimes that change is uncomfortable. Change is good. It’s healthy. Change helps us grow and prosper, without it, the world and us in it, wouldn’t be where it is.
So what do you want to change in 2019?
Are you completely happy with the way your life is right now? If so, that’s fantastic. I applaud you, keep it up. Maybe you’re one of the lucky few who
Most of us want more.
It’s not often that we sit back and appreciate what we already have. The things that we wanted last year are discarded just like the forgotten toys of kids who have grown bored and are asking Santa for something shiny and new. We do the same thing with our achievements. As soon as we tick a goal off the list, it’s no longer good enough. We want so much more. And the cycle repeats leaving us unsatisfied.
I dare you to take a moment today, or this week, to reflect over the past twelve months or even the past twelve years.
- Where were you last year? Where were you over a decade ago? What did you yearn for? How did you feel?
- Make a list of all the weird and wonderful things that you have done. Appreciate them for what they are. Be grateful for the opportunities that you’ve had. Take the moment to smell the roses.
In life, there will always be people ahead just as there will be those lagging behind. We are all on our own journey. It’s ridiculous to compare our journey to the journey of the people around us.
It’s okay to want more. Just as it’s equally okay to settle for what you have if that makes you happy.
Your life, your happiness. Your choice.
It’s never your job to make anyone else happy. Neither should you expect anyone else to make you happy.
So without further ado.
What do you want in 2019?
Will you be making the usual resolutions on January 1, then completely forgetting them by mid-February?
OR
Will you take the time to consider what you want your life to look like in 1-3 years down the track, then come up with a plan and action steps that you can take to achieve it all within the designated time frame?
I love the acronym K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid in case you don’t know). But it’s one that I often forget. By keeping things simple when setting your goals you set yourself up for success. Complicate things and it’s easy to get discouraged and distracted.
Let’s take an example.
I want to write a book. Sounds simple enough. It’s not. Writing a book is a tough slog. It’s time-consuming. The process stretches every inch of you, forcing you to push barriers your brain has imposed on you.
But if you break it down with the K.I.S.S. principle then it becomes easier and much more achievable.
Instead of I want to write a book. Try this: I’m going to dedicate 30 minutes out of my busy schedule most days of the week and write 500 words of my story.
In 6 months, you’re going to have a book.
Writing 500 words a day is much easier than writing a book.
You want your goals to challenge you but you don’t want to be overwhelmed each time you think about them.
Maybe you want to run a marathon or lose weight. They’re big goals. But the steps required to take them are simple.
Start running a few kilometres a day and build up until you feel comfortable running a marathon. Reduce junk food and eat more fruit and vegetables to lower the number on the scales.
Your big goal will still be achieved but it won’t be giving you heart palpitations because the year is running away from you.
According to Business Insider, around 80% of New Year Resolutions are completely forgotten by mid-February. Do you want to be part of that statistic? I’d prefer to be in the other 20% who achieve their objectives.
The key is to look at your habits. Until you change those, then achieving your goal will be a pipe dream.
A writer with a habit of writing those 500 words every day is going to have 182,500 words by the end of the year which easily equates to 2-3 standard sized novels.
A person dreaming of running a marathon is going to attain the goal faster by starting a running program and aiming for 20 minutes a few times a week and building up towards 3-5 hours of running each week.
Habits are integral to our success.
Change your habits, change your life.
It really is that simple.
In 2019, instead of looking at a list of items you want to tick off by 31 December 2019, think about the habits that you want to change.
What do you want your life to look like?
Ignore the naysayers in your life. Forget what your best friend desires. Shrug off the neighbours’ comments about your shitty car. Embrace the people that lift you up and tell you that you can achieve everything you desire.
What habits do you need to develop to create the life of your dreams?
You can still have the list for all the other things that you want to do like for example here’s a few of mine:
- Travel to a new destination in Australia
- Read 52 books
- Learn a new skill
- Compete in a 70.3 Ironman race
The habits that I want to maintain or develop to achieve these goals include the following:
- Write at least 1500 words per day
- Swim, bike and run 2-3 times per week
- Get at least 7 hours of sleep per night
- Live on less than I earn and save the difference
- Drink 2L+ water every day
Creating good habits will lead to achieving your goals. Without good habits, we set ourselves up for failure.
But there’s another layer to successful new year’s resolutions and that’s putting the plan into action. People often get lost here. It’s easy to set a goal but much harder to get down to the nitty-gritty of it and break it down into steps that you can take every day to bring your closer to achieving success.
It doesn’t matter what goal you set for yourself if you’re not willing to push boundaries and take action from day one. Whether or not you achieve the goals set for yourself depends solely on you.
You have to be conscious of your goals every single day. Your decisions from the moment you wake up till the time you go to bed will reflect whether you achieve your goals. It’s no use having ice cream for breakfast when you want six-pack abs by summer. You’re not going to get better at writing if you forget to switch on the laptop and designate an hour or two towards working on your craft.
You also need to know how to use the word ‘No’. Saying ‘no’ isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes you even have to be willing to tell it to yourself. It can be empowering and be difference between achieving your goal versus spending another year wondering why you didn’t tick off the new year resolutions.
2019 is upon us. I still can’t believe how fast the year has rolled around.
It’s time for new beginnings. A fresh start.
I wish you all the best for 2019. May you have the courage to pursue your dreams and live life on your terms.
0 Comments