Just Half An Hour

With a new year comes a plethora of resolutions.

For as long as I can remember, I have always adamantly refused to make New Year’s resolutions because even before the “word on the street” confirmed that most people don’t keep them, I knew the pressure was more than I wanted to put on myself.

But that’s not to say that I don’t ever resolve to start doing new things or stop doing things for the betterment of my life… I do. I just deliberately choose not to make these changes around the beginning of the year or link them in any way to a new year.

Is this a cop out?

Perhaps…

But it’s how I’ve learned to manage the expectations I put on myself.

Recently, I was perusing some other blogs and, as expected, a lot of bloggers are sharing their New Year’s posts for 2019.

I loved reading them because I gained new perspectives about how others approach a new year and what I can learn from them.

Hopefully, you’ll find these useful as well.

Lessons Learned From Other Bloggers About Types of Goal Setting & New Year’s Resolutions

• Set quarterly goals – thanks to Hayley of Life Of Hayley for pointing this out. Setting goals on a quarterly basis is a lot less intimidating and gives you multiple opportunities throughout the year to assess successes and re-tool along the way.
• Keep your goals simple – most of us strive to be better people with each passing year (as we should) and sometimes that can be as simple as resolving to just be more authentically “us”. With the advent and proliferation of social media, we tend to do so much “comparison shopping” of ourselves, be it conscious or not, but Janie of Authentically50 said it so well and perfectly succinctly… “be more authentically you”
• Focus on only what’s most important – this can change throughout the year or be a long-term goal that will require us to really buckle down and just keep our eye on the prize. Andrea of The Perks of Being Different is doing this by getting rid of the long list of desired achievements and zoning in on just one primary goal. Thinking about it from another angle, this can also be one thing that encompasses many others so it’s still simple yet accomplishes a lot. Living Simple & Natural of Words By Wildflowers lays this concept out just beautifully.
• Don’t neglect my blog – as a blogger (I almost feel like a fake saying that, but I’ll name it and claim it) 🙂 Part of planning for the new year should include attention to my blog. It won’t happen if I ignore it (which I’m guilty of doing sometimes) and I was inspired by Christy of When Women Inspire to actually set concrete goals for what I want to accomplish with and on my blog.
• Live in the present – don’t ignore the “now” by focusing on previous plans, goals, and resolutions that failed. Radhika of Radhika’s Reflection made this point very poetically in her 2019 poem… I can’t say it any better.
• Get through the year faster – sounds contrary to the point above doesn’t it…? Ha! You’ll have to read Victoria’s blog to find out why it’s not 😉 I like Victoria Ray’s of Ray Not Bradbury take on using the year to do things that help to improve yourself while having fun along the way.
• Voice out what you’re already doing – this is a great way to keep yourself accountable to your goals and to stay on track when you’ve got your flow down. That’s what Sofii of A Book. A Thought is doing. I like this because you don’t really have to come up with new goals or resolutions but you can make adjustments and improvements to what you’re already doing.

Is it ethical for me to “borrow” my own 2019 goals from what all these other bloggers have shared? I hope so because I can see myself totally getting on board with all of the above.

Final Fun Facts: If you’re a numbers person like I am and you’d like to just have some numbers fun with 2019, then check out this collection of mathematical facts about 2019 put together by Edmark of Learn Fun Facts.

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I’ll be doing more challenges in 2019 as well, I don’t know which ones yet, but I’ll endeavor to find ones that I think I will both enjoy and ones that will help me do more writing, better writing, and more reading as well.

I stumbled on this reading challenge a couple of days ago (I didn’t even know that reading challenges were a thing!) and, since I already do most of my reading using library books, it just seemed like a natural fit… I’m so in!! 🙂

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Happy 2019… I hope it is a pleasant, prosperous, and fulfilling year for you and yours.