Why New Year Resolutions Suck And What You Should Do Instead

Oh crap! It’s new year, new me o’clock. Today’s no different than yesterday but somehow everyone feels like today is resolution kick off day. I’m sure you feel brand new and feel like you can achieve everything you set out to achieve this year. But you know what? All your resolutions are going to fail.

Why? Because you’re still that same old procrastinator from last year. You didn’t reach your saving goal, didn’t eat mainly fruits and veggies, didn’t exercise every day, didn’t take your VA business dreams seriously or even earn passive income online like you said you would.

At least you lost weight? How much weight? 5kg? But you gained 10kg while trying to have a detty December. By the way, your December wasn’t even detty!

So this year you’re ready again with your list of “resolutions” and shit and feel like you are going to reach the sky. Let me be the first to tell you resolutions have a high potential to fail so it’s not because Timaya sang the song. You know the one about him not killing himself. It’s not because your village people are using your picture to fan themselves. As much as you’d like to blame your village witches for your dumb mistakes, they are innocent. I hate to break it to you, but you are not so important to your village witches. This one’s on you.

WHY DO NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS SUCK?

Short Answer: Because they are unreasonable and unrealistic decisions sometimes made out of peer pressure without a clear course of action to achieve them.

Okay, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for people making decisions to better themselves but then, they are already programmed to fail because they are mostly unrealistic. I know they say the sky is your starting point but honey, chill.

Take a deep breathe. I am not attacking you yet

Bring down your shoulders, humble yourself, the ground is your starting point. Don’t build castles in the air again this year.

Thing is, resolutions suck for everyone. They are a bad move no matter how good your intentions are. Hell, I bet you can’t even remember some of your resolutions from last year. The fact that you had to wait till January 1^st to become a better version of you is just nonsense. I really don’t want you doing the same dumb shit you did last year. So call me whatever you choose. The ghost of New Years’ past, fairy god-mother. Have at it.

But this is your chance to make things right this year and onward. So instead of whining about why new year resolutions suck, I decided to tell you what you should do instead.

What You Should Do Instead?

Short Answer: SET SMART GOALS. This is simply and acronym for:

• S- Specific
• M- Measurable
• A- Actionable
• R- Relevant
• T- Time bound

When you set a goal, it has to have all five of the above features for it to work. This features will be your road map to achieving the set goal.

I’ll tell you this for free. If your goals are something even a teensy weensy bit abstract—like start a side hustle or become a virtual assistant…you are going to beat yourself up by this time next year because you won’t achieve your goal.

Instead, your goal should look like this:

I’ll take the virtual assistant launchpad training, launch my business in February, hone my skills and actively seek free and paid opportunities to learn.

How To Set Smart Goals

Review the past year:  first step is reviewing the past year. I know they say you have to let go of the past but not in this case. You have to see what went well, what didn’t go well, determine why it didn’t go well and strategize ways to improve.

Write down your goals: I don’t know about you but I’d rather plan with pen and paper. I stick to my goals better when I can write them down in my own handwriting. But whatever works for you is fine. The most important thing is for you to stick to your goals.

See: Habakkuk 2:2 “Write down the vision and make it plain on tablets so that whoever reads it may run with it.” And Exodus 17:14 “…the Lord instructed Moses, “Write this down on a scroll as a permanent reminder…”

Create a vision board: Create a vision board of the goals you have written down and put it where you can see every day. This may be on your room wall, inside your planner or in your office.

Get an accountability partner: Having someone to keep you in check and help you get your shit together when you go astray is priceless. I wanted to create a small private accountability group and have a small number of you join me crush your goals but I am too busy to make it work.

Review and Update your goals: At the end of 2019, I made a couple of goals with the steps to achieve them. They were SMART goals so I was going to stick with them. But shit happened. Good shit anyways.

I lost more weight than I had planned (not intentionally), I started teaching people how to start blogs, I got married, became a virtual assistant by accident and started making money online. My goals changed and my focus changed (in a good way) and I couldn’t be more proud of my achievements.

Imagine if I had stuck with my goals and followed through as planned, I would have refused the opportunity to make money from home working as a virtual assistant and refused to get married among other things. Imagine if I had waited till January to start my virtual assistant business.

You will be a fool to keep doing what obviously isn’t working for you. If I move on to create this group, I will send tips and tricks that have been working for me and we can all review our goals for the week/month and the year. I think this will be fun. 

FINAL WORDS

It is laughable that people make resolutions and fail half way through January but have to wait till the next year to start again. If you think the New Year comes with a special resolution keeping spirit or things will be perfect and following through with your resolutions will be easier, you have to think again or I’ll make fun of you. I hope you’ve learned why new year resolutions suck and what you should do instead. Have you set goals for the year or you are going to wing it?

Lest I forget, Happy New Year!