Setting and achieving goals is a great way to maintain motivation and see progress throughout our lives. However, many people fall into a slump after the first month or so of goal setting. Why is this? Lack of motivation? Shift in priorities? Or even simple forgetfulness? Well, today I am going to reveal my secrets to maintaining my goals throughout the year to help ensure you finally reach all of your new year’s resolutions. Ready to dive in? Let’s do it!
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.
What are New Year’s Resolutions?
When I say “New Year’s Resolutions,” I am talking about one-year goals (or as I categorize them, short-term goals). Most create their own New Year’s Resolutions at the beginning of each year, with the goal of having them completed by the end (or December 31st). Check out how you can create your very own New Year’s Resolutions HERE!
Related: An Ultimate Guide to Short Term Goals You Can Actually Achieve
Why are New Year’s Resolutions Important?
Great questions! As I’ve already hinted, New Year’s Resolutions are incredibly valuable tools to use throughout your life. They help maintain motivation to reach your highest potential and assist in many aspects of your life including family, career, financial, etc. Finally, they help you track your progress to ensure you’re really making a change in your life.
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Supplies for Creating Short-Term Goals
One last thing before we really dive into the steps of short term goal setting: supplies! It is true, goal setting can easily be done digitally. But a much more fun and perhaps more fulfilling way is to write them all down by hand. Many people choose to create short term goals and include them inside their planner or journal. Others create a visual goal list with pictures for each one. Whichever way you choose, here are some great supplies to help you along the way:
- The Olden Chapters Goal Printable Planner: This is the ultimate goal printable planner! With over 25 different workbooks, calendars, trackers, goal worksheets, and more, this planner includes everything you might need to reach each and every goal this year.
- Bullet Journal: Many people use a bullet journal as a planner, list holder, or personal journal. I personally use it as the latter two paired with my printable planner. Bullet journals make amazing notebooks because they have dot-grid pages and a specific index area. If you want to learn more about how to use a bullet journal efficiently, check out Rider Carol’s fabulous book The Bullet Journal Method.
- Project Planning Free Printable: This is my free project planning printable that is perfect for starting your goals of on the right foot! It helps you create an attack plan for any large goal, with space for notes, a task list, reward, and more!
Related: The Ultimate Guide to Project Planning (10 Easy Steps!)
- Coletto Pen and Refill: These pens are absolutely my favorite to use when color coding tasks and notes. They are fantastic multi-pens that don’t feel too bulky and have amazing ink quality! Be warned, the pen itself doesn’t come with ink (because they are so customizable) so you have to purchase them separately.
- Tombow Duel Brush Pens: These fantastic brush pens are great for goal setting, journaling, and project planning. The lighter colors are great to use as highlighters and the darker colors are perfect for sketching out ideas. They are super popular to use with the bullet journal!
- Poster Board: When you’re working on your goals, it is important to print them out and post them somewhere (even better to create a vision board!). Poster board is one of the cheap essentials needed in this process!
Related: Create Your Dream Vision Board Today!
- Glitter Glue: Another great craft supply to always have on hand is glitter glue. It just adds that extra bit of flare to any project, don’t you think?
- Command Strips: Command strips are perfect for hanging up your goals and poster board onto your wall. I use these ALL THE TIME to hang up my vision board and goals (which I keep in a picture frame on the wall near my desk). Command strips make it so easy to hang anything you need and ensure you don’t damage you walls!
- Mod-Podge: Finally, mod-podge is great when creating your goals, especially if you are going to hang up a list of your goals or create a vision board on your wall. Just add a layer of mod-podge and it will last forever!
Check out my Ultimate Goal Printable Planner today! It will skyrocket your productivity and help you reach all your goals!
Project Planner Free Printable
This freebie is perfect to kickstart your goals on the right track! It helps you turn your goals into actionable steps, with space to add a task list, notes, ideas, rewards, and so much more! Download it today to get started!
How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions Throughout the Year: Top Tips to Maintaining Your Goals
Now that we have the basics covered, let’s really dive into the top ways you can ensure you keep your goals this year!
1. Create Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Rewards
Creating rewards is an awesome motivational tool. The key here is that you absolutely can not give yourself this reward unless you meet a specific goal (or multiple goals) that you have set for yourself.
Personally, I use rewards as a tool to meet all of my weekly, monthly, and yearly goals by giving myself thresholds. For example, let’s say this week I have ten goals. By the end of the week, if I have met 8 of them, I get a small reward (such as a movie night), if I meet 9, I get a medium reward (such as a cheat meal), and if I meet all 10 of my goals, I get a large reward (such as a full day of adventuring).
Need some reward ideas? This gift guide post is filled with great ideas, all under $25!
2. Re-Evaluate your Goals Each Month and Quarter
Through the process of monthly and quarterly reviews, you can help re-evaluate your goals. This will help you:
- Monitor your goal progress
- Ensure your goals are still in line with what you want to achieve and allow you to modify them as life changes
- Create smaller, bite-sized goals that are more achievable
- Reward yourself
- Pump yourself up and maintain motivation
Related: The Ultimate Guide to Quarterly and Monthly Reviews
3. Use a Vision Board to Maintain Motivation
Vision boards are great tools to maintain your motivation. They are also incredibly fun to make! They help remind you why you began this journey to reach your goals and what your life might look like when you’ve reached them. After you’ve created your own, be sure to put it somewhere you can see it every day, such as next to your desk or in your bedroom.
Related: Game-Changing Motivation Tips That Actually Work
4. Ensure Your Goals Align With Your Personal Mission Statement
A personal mission statement is a powerful, one to two sentence phrase that embodies your overall values and mission in life. It is incredibly unique to each individual. Aligning your goals with your own personal mission statement will ensure that your goals are incredibly specific, meaningful, and unique to YOU. This could make the difference between making mediocre goals that are difficult to complete, to making BOMB unique goals that motivate you each day to get out of bed.
Related: Discover How to Create an Effective Personal Mission Statement
5. Journal About Your Progress
Writing down your thoughts can be an incredible and useful way to review your current goal progress, highlight your successes, learn from your failures, and evaluate where you should go from here. In addition to helping you with your life goals, journaling has so many other incredible benefits, such as stress reduction and boosting your memory! Looking for a new journal? Here is my current favorite!
Related: An Ultimate Guide to Junk Journaling (easily combine your scrapbook with your journal today!)
6. Utilize Habit Trackers
Tracking your progress is an incredibly useful tool in goal setting and achieving. You can easily do this using an app on your phone, a spreadsheet on your computer, or utilize fun handouts (like the ones in my Etsy shop! Such as this personal development bundle!)
One great way to utilize habit trackers is to list out all of your habits and add a goal number for the month before the listed days. For example, you might have a goal of working out three times a week for four weeks this month, totaling 12 workouts for the month. Then, add a fun reward at the top of the page. Once you have completed at least 80% of you habits for the month, celebrate with your reward!
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7. Project Plan Your Large Goals and Create Separate Rewards for Each
I highly recommend completing the entire project planning process for each goal that cannot be turned into a habit. This can easily be done using the freebie listed towards the beginning of this post! Turning your major goals into projects helps you break them up into bite-sized pieces and smaller tasks, and schedule them when your time allows. This is a key process to truly sticking to your goals and seeing real progress.
Related: How to Turn Your Goals into Projects With This Amazing 10-Step Process
8. Post Your Goals and Look at Them Each Day
Having your goals listed somewhere you can easily read them is a great way to push yourself to review them each day. Print them out, frame them, and add them to your desk. Turn them into a vision board and place them on top of your dresser. Slip them into your planner. Or even list your goals as the first page in your journal. Whichever you choose, be sure you’re able to see them often!
9. Utilize Your Desktop and Phone Backgrounds
I am a huge advocate of using your desktop and phone backgrounds as motivational tools. These are places you see each and every day, why not make them powerful? Choose a photo that represents your top goal of the year that truly pumps you up. This could be, perhaps, a photo of a dream vacation you’re saving up for. Or even your dream home, dream job… you can even save your vision board to as your background! The key here is to switch it out often (I suggest monthly) so it catches your eye throughout the year.
10. Find an Accountability Partner
An accountability partner is someone you can reach out for guidance and motivation. They are someone who is going to push you to truly reach your highest potential. This might mean they come to your house at 5 in the morning to drag you out of bed and into the gym, or even someone who helps you apply to that scary new position at work. Be sure to return the favor and push them too! Help each other reach your highest goals this year!
11. Schedule Time Off from your Goals if Needed
I know, this might seem counterproductive. However, it can actually really boost you in the right direction. About half-way through the year, many people begin to lose interest in their goals or abandon them altogether. Do not be this person. Instead, add a two- or three-week break and actually schedule time to return to your goals and start out fresh. This can easily be done by completing a monthly or quarterly goal review! It is a great way to get out of a slump and avoid goal burnout!
Related: An Ultimate Guide to Goal Reviews: The Key to Maintaining Your Yearly Goals!
12. Be Flexible with Your Self
Finally, give yourself space. Remember “Small Progress is still progress.” You are way ahead of where you were last year, or years before! Keep up the good work, even if it is slow. Also, keep in mind that you are not superhuman. Ensure each of your goals are realistic for this time in your life. Don’t set yourself up for failure.
Top Books on Goal Setting
The entire goal setting and achieving process can be overwhelming and difficult. There are absolutely right and wrong ways of going about it and these books have helped me achieve my biggest dreams (and continue to lead me in the right direction today!). I am sure they will lead you on the path to achieving your largest goals in life.
The Compound Effect: Jumpstart your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy
If you haven’t read this book you are seriously missing out. It is a complete game changer and should be sitting on everyone’s shelf. This Wall Street Journal and New York Times Bestseller covers the powerful yet surprisingly simple principle that little everyday decisions will either help you achieve greatness or end up in disaster naturally, and how to steer them in the right direction. It covers how to win at everything, abolish bad habits, maintain motivation and more. It is an absolute must read!
Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by Michael Hyatt
As the title suggests, this is book covers a phenomenal 5-step plan that guarantees you set and reach the most important goals in your life. It covers tips that help you when you get stuck, how to quit-proof your goals, and so much more. As an added bonus, it is a quick and easy read!
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr
This New York Times Bestseller explores the secrets of the famous and wildly successful goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) that has been proven time and time again to be effective. This system ensures you maintain focus and stay on track until your goals are being met!
Goals! How to Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Thought Possible by Brian Tracy
This is a fantastic book that helps distinguish the people who reach their goals from those that just dream of having a better life. It then dives into a simple yet powerful goal setting method that is incredibly effective. Tracy also focuses on specific goals in different areas in life, such as finances, health, and family. A fantastic read!
Related: 21 Life-Changing Books You Must Read in Your 20’s!
The Goal Setting Series
This post is the last in my major goal setting series. If you’re interested in more goal related content, here they all are in order, check them out!
- How to Create a Personal Mission Statement and Why It’s So Important
- Discover How to Create a Motivational Bucket List (+50 Ideas to Get You Started)
- The Ultimate Guide to Long-Term Goal Planning
- How to Create Short Term Goals in 12 Easy Steps: An Ultimate Guide
- Create the Perfect Vision Board in These Simple Steps
- How to Complete a Monthly Goal Review
- An Ultimate Guide to Completing a Personal Mid-Year Review
- Steps for a Successful Quarterly and Yearly Goal Review
- 12 Secretes to Ensure You Reach Your Goals This Year
- The Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting and Achieving
There you have it! My top tips to ensure you reach all of your new year’s resolutions this year. I truly hope you were able to find some useful bits of information and can apply them to different areas of your life. Good luck, have fun, and happy goal setting!
Don’t forget to check out my Ultimate Goal Printable Planner to ensure you reach each of your goals this year!
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