New Year, New You?
It’s new year, and a new you. Well, sometimes. Often we make grand visions of our future of who we want to be and look towards amazing goals, but then fall short and put the guilt on ourselves. Our inner critic comes talking: We just aren’t good enough. I’ll never be able to do that. My friends will think it’s a dumb goal. I’m not attractive enough. I don’t know what your inner critic tells you, but I know it says something because we all have one. My point is that we need to find a way to let our imagination flourish while our goals are still accomplished.
It’s beautiful for us to dream. I’m also willing to bet that most of you that end up reading this are dreamers, because people that love to write and engage with pieces of writing tend to have vast imaginations. Don’t ever think that the imaginative part of you is wrong. That is not what I am trying to say. You should keep your dreams in front of you as if they are a part of your glasses, so that you always envision your big ideas and keep the inner critic away.
Your dreams is need something with them: accountability. Whether you make a New Year’s resolution in the next few days or you start a resolution a few weeks after the holiday, you need a partner for your dream. That partner is your accountability, which may or may not be a person. So do the following:
Write your goals down. List them out in as clear words as possible and envision them. Dream of them. Then make an action plan for them. Write out a specific chronology of steps you will need to take in order to make those goals a reality. Finally, tell someone else about them. Your goal’s chances of success increases significantly if you bring someone else to do it with you or at the minimum, keep you accountable. Lastly, if you are present on social media, consider posting about it if you really want to ensure your accountability. It’s not something I would personally do, but I know many friends have found success in online engagement with their new year’s goals.
What you need is not to get rid of your dreams, but to pair your dreams with a concrete action plan. By the way, if you do tell someone about it or do it with them, it makes it more fun! As the line goes in Into the Wild, “happiness is only real when shared.” Don’t let your happiness stay inside of you — let others into it too.
Here’s a couple of final thoughts. First, I’ve stayed really vague for a reason. I don’t know you, so I don’t know your background, your dreams, and your everyday thoughts. I don’t want to minimize the impact of your dreams for the next year, so take these thoughts and transform them into something practical. It does not have to be a grand goal. To paraphrase Dr. Jordan Peterson, if you want to be a better person and can’t figure out what to do, you’re not aiming low enough. There is something that you are not doing that you currently view as trivial. It could be cleaning your room, being on time, or exercising a few days a week. Your goals for the next year can start out small, because I guarantee you that the fire from completing a small goal will light you up to do even more.
To stay accountable, post one or two of your goals for 2022 in the comments. Let’s help each other stay accountable, and we can talk about ways that we can make our goals concrete for each other. Feel free to comment on mine. Here’s a few of mine:
- Be early to work and social engagements
- Publish my novel
- Run a full marathon
What you striving for this year? I’d love to hear about it below so we can keep dreaming.
