Ditch the New Year’s resolution

Ditch the New Year’s resolution - How to build a productive list of goals for 2024 that you can stick to

There are dozens of programs and plans for creating productive life goals. If you go on YouTube, you can find thousands of people walking you through how they did it in a variety of ways. Lucky for you, I have a borderline obsessive personality and watched dozens of them so you don’t have to. Some focus on a specific end date, some focus on acronyms like S.M.A.R.T., and others stress long-term vision, but they all have something in common.

What’s the goal?

The first step is finding your goals which can be a daunting task all on its own. If you just started a new career or feel uninspired, it can seem like there is no way to figure out your professional goals. How do you move up when you don’t know which way is up? YouTuber struthless has a great formula in his video How & Why to Set Goals (for people who feel lost in life) where he breaks down how to find your goals. The formula is: “I want to _(something specific)_ by _(certain timeline)_ because _(how it helps others)_ and _(how it helps me)_.”

Using this method can help you understand what you want and the intentions behind it. If you are focused on a professional goal, simply change the reasons to something like “how it will help me grow professionally” and “how it can help others”.

For me, my goals for 2024 are fairly simple. I made a long list of everything I want to achieve in 2024 and was able to break it down into three main goals. I want to begin working on my next work accreditation, improve my financial situation through saving and investing, and increase my physical health. I set my list up fairly simply. My to-dos were broken into daily, weekly, and monthly tasks that needed to be done.

Breaking down daily tasks with long-term consequences.

If you want to achieve your goal it needs to be measurable, and you need to break it down into smaller, digestible goals. One I liked is How to Design Your Life by the Modern Health Monk. In this video, Alex starts his whole process with a simple question: “What’s the coolest thing that could happen in the next five years?” From here, he builds out his plan working towards this “coolest thing”. He recommends choosing a few goals and breaking each into no more than 3 daily habits.

My first goal of 2024 is to begin working on my next accreditation. I know that to earn the accreditation, will take about five years, so for this year I set benchmark goals. I set a plan to take a new course every month which breaks down to working approximately three hours a week on education content. I also set a goal to download the study guide for my particular license and study it for two hours a week. Both my goals combined are about five additional hours a week of work, but it’s work I enjoy and can do while lying in bed.

Now I have my weekly plan, but to be honest, as a mother living alone with my son while working full-time and a part-time job, five hours a week is just…a lot of time. Time is money, and when you are a mother, time is memories with your child. It’s more precious than gold. I set a schedule to work 30 minutes every weeknight after bed, which comes out to 2.5 hours per workweek. This way I can meet my goals without having to worry about finding time in my day.  So now that I’ve developed a plan it's vital to me that my time is used wisely.
Maintaining momentum

According to YouTuber muchelleb, the key to goals is to keep them short-term (about 3 months or 13 weeks), and flexible.  In her video How to Design Your Goal she stresses an 8-step system that lays out her system to success. Most of the tips were similar to other videos, but I liked her emphasis on the timeline of a goal. She pointed out that you never know long-term who you will be, which is why yearly goals often fail. By setting smaller goals instead, you can increase success.

Knowing myself, I know that a strict schedule to study every night is doable but not enjoyable. While I have held myself to this schedule in the past, I didn’t enjoy it and found myself dreading the daily study hour rather than enjoying my time to focus on myself and learn more. Instead of setting a goal for a year of study every weeknight, I changed my goals to a monthly goal. Each month I want to find some course that’s interesting professionally and I want to complete it by the end of the month. Most courses are two to three weeks, so this gives me a grace period if I’m busy or tired and can't get to it.

After hours on YouTube scrolling through advice, programs, and how-to videos, I’ve come up with a simple list of things to do. Find a passion, be specific about it, and allow yourself flexibility.  For more guidance on professional goals and finding a successful future, be sure to check out our MG Job Journal which has a section dedicated to goals and growth. Don’t forget to watch the videos mentioned above and let them know you came from this article.

Happy goal setting for 2024! Let us know below what your goals for the new year are.