Goals for 2021
I’m not one for making “New Year’s resolutions”. This being said, I think there is value in setting goals you hope to achieve for the upcoming year. See, a resolution is “a firm decision to do something”, whereas a goal is something you are working towards. Whenever I make resolutions, I feel defeated within three weeks of the year for falling on my face. With goals, I feel successful if I see a change by summer. This mindset shift has worked for me in the past and hopefully will continue to benefit me moving into the new year. Maybe it will also benefit you 🙂
Goal Planning for 2021
So what goes into planning goals, rather than resolutions? When planning out goals, I have found that having a few, specific ones is better than lots of broad “concepts”.
As an example:
Concept – don’t do this: someone may say their goal for the new year is to lose weight. Okay, while this is fine, technically they could lose 6 lbs in January and have achieved this goal. This is a concept goal, not something concrete.
The correct way to create a goal: Now, let’s say this same person said their goal for the new year is to lose 15 lbs and maintain it. This is a goal. Something with an end result that can be hit. And, when it is hit, they will feel that rush of encouragement and success!
The other key difference between the concept goal and the concrete goal? With the concept goal, everything is broad. It is hard to feel accomplished because the ability to give up early on is so easy. With a concrete goal, it is easy to plan little milestones along the way, giving you targets to hit on your way to meeting your big goal.
My Personal Goals for 2021
So, with all of that said, please find my goals (accompanied by my goal plan for each!) for 2021:
Read at least 15 career development or mental health related books
I am all about a good nonfiction book. In recent years, I have really gotten terrible about sitting down and making myself focus and read! In my article about my top best buys from this past year, I talked about reading this type of book while pedaling on my Peloton. While this is true, and something I love doing, I have only managed to get through one and a half books this way. Though I don’t plan on stopping this method, I do plan on upping my book consumption and adding extra books in to read while I am not pedalling away.
My Plan: Finish at least one book of these genres a month sans working out, and one book of this type per quarter (every three months). This makes 16 books, which gives me some leeway for if I get busy at some point during this time (I am working on planning my wedding, after all). The thing that makes this hard is I am challenging myself to write reviews on here for every single one of the books, which is time consuming.
Increase my fitness to be where it was pre COVID-19
Very few of us had an Adele-like glow up during the pandemic. Prior to the shutdown, I was in the best shape of my life. I was going to the gym 4-6 days a week and doing active cardio in addition to weights. This was being mixed in on top of my cycling classes and pilates. My body was in great shape and my mental health was amazing because I felt so good!
Though I tried hard to maintain a fitness ritual during and even after the shutdown ended, I am nowhere near where I was at the beginning of this year. I want to get back to the same place I was mentally and physically.
My Plan: For January, my goal is just to do a reset. Build up my endurance, work on doing more cardio, stretching, drinking more water, and eating healthy. Starting in February, I want to begin getting back to the same amount of time and energy I used to exert at the gym. I will do this by first getting my number of steps in a day back up to around 10,000, and then by adding in weights that are slightly lighter than where I was previously. My goal is to be able to complete workouts I was able to do pre-pandemic by mid April for a full week without giving up (so 4-6 without having to take days off).
Engage and be more active/consistent on my blog
My blog has been my happy creative project for the past little while now. While I was working full time on a very rigorous project that required about 60 hours a week, I struggled to find consistency. This year, I hope to find a rhythm that works for me and my audience so that I am posting more robust content at least 5 times a week.
My Plan: You can’t just go hot out of the gate posting all the time on every platform. Strategy is involved. Starting in January, I want to have more consistency on my blog specifically, posting a minimum of 4 times a week. By the end of the month, I hope to have increased my Instagram to 6 in feed posts a week and showing myself on stories at least twice. In February, I hope to launch my first course to monetize my business. From then on, I want to ramp up to having 5 blog posts a week, showing my face at least 3 times a week on stories, and coming out with one new course every month. By April, I want to add TikTok into the equation End goal is to double my viewership during the year 2021.
Final Thoughts on New Years Goals
By only creating three, very feasible goals with thought out plans, rather than “resolutions” I hope to be able to track my progress and better my chance of seeing results.
Do you have new year goals? What are your plans for executing them?
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