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Hello friends!
Well, the New Year is around the corner. If you’re reading this, you’re looking for some tips to manifest your goals. If so, this post is for you!
I get asked this a lot.... how do you set New Year's Resolutions? How can you keep New Year's Resolutions? Can manifestation help you keep your resolutions and meet goals? Yes. Yes to it all!
Every year people all around the world get SO EXCITED about their New Year’s Resolutions. We become enamored with this idea of becoming a better version of ourselves. I mean... New Year, New Me, right?
We enter the New Year with the best of intentions. We truly WANT to improve ourselves and we’re optimistic about our ability to do so and change for the better. We commit to our resolution, we make progress in the first week, maybe the first month, and very rarely past the first half of the year.
We slowly let our resolutions slip and hope we do better next year because so many people around the world s.t.r.u.g.g.l.e to keep resolutions long-term. But why do so many of us struggle to stick with our resolutions? How can you keep from becoming another statistic?
The big “how” is in the planning. Planning so intentionally that you cannot fail anyway but forward.
I’m sure at this point you’re probably thinking to yourself, “but I do plan! My friends and I always communicate our goals to each other” or “I always get a membership to XYZ” Or “I bought all the self help books in preparation!”. Or my personal favorite “But I’ve already bought my meal prepping containers!” Any of these, or versions of, sound familiar to you?
Having goals for the New Year that you can clearly articulate is a great first step. But we want to manifest the BEST version of our lives right? Let’s not settle for half assed New Year’s Resolutions.
And if you're interested in some help, you can check out my Year Ahead Planning Workshop which is available NOW for only $30. You could get started within the next 5 minutes!
So, let’s jump into how you can create a resolution you will keep.
The first step to keeping your resolution is:
1. Identify what you want
Identify the things you want most. What is the list of things you’ve always wanted for yourself, that are completely within your control? Ask yourself what makes you the happiest and most inspired if they were accomplished? How would it FEEL to achieve these goals?
Create a list of what you want and why. Spend time on each goal and connect with it. Is it a small goal? Big goal? Does it feel overwhelming? If it does feel overwhelming, can you break this goal down into a different micro goal instead that feels more in alignment?
For example, if you want to work on decluttering your whole house to make room for more abundant energy, maybe you can start with a drawer, or a closet, or a bookshelf instead?
Sometimes our resolutions would be huge accomplishments because we want to see big change, but we forget to start small. It helps keep us from the “fight out flight” mode while building your confidence which will overtime, shut your ego up, and make long lasting change. Ever experience the yo-yo effect? Most of the time, this happens when we try to “do it all” too quickly. Instead of working out everyday, what if it were once a week? Bite sized goals are more maintainable longterm. Lifestyle changes are created by the smallest shifts!
2. Clarify your “why”
Make sure your goals really resonate with you emotionally. If they’re too superficial or shallow, it’s not going to be very hard to give up when the first set of obstacles come up.
Let’s say one of your goals to get healthy. Why? Beyond how you look, beyond a general sense of well being....deeper. Get to the core of your “why”. Keep funneling down until you get to something that fires you up. Something that will keep you going when challenges present themselves.
Maybe your “why” in this example would be to release the body image you have of someone who is unlovable and allow yourself to step into the mental health of someone who is enough, or maybe alcoholism runs in your family and you want to be the generation that ends the cycle, or maybe you’re tired of an identity you have that uiu no infer like and want freedom from. Go deeper.
3. Be selective & maintain balance
Choose one or two goals that you would like to pursue as a resolution. Yes, one or two! I know, I know… we want to “do all the things”. Most of us are high achievers! Save that for other parts of your life, not with your goals. Too many goals are a recipe for disappointment and disaster. Here is why: Our brains perceive major life shifts as stressors, or attacks against what we know,
which makes our body produce the stress hormone (cortisol). In other words, too many changes (even healthy ones) can cause us to engage our “fight or flight” response. We can maintain this for a little while, but our brains will eventually cause so much stress for us that we have to quit after a few weeks. It’s not a lack of discipline or even motivation, it’s a survival mechanism. To that end, you never failed to meet your goals, you made too many, too big, too quickly.
The average person who makes a list of goals commits to 4 a day and only hits 50% of them for the first few weeks. When this happens, self-deprecation sets in and soon enough people fall off of their goals completely because of an “all or nothing” mindset. The lesson? Have less goals! We don’t need to “do it all”, all the time. Instead, be intentional. 1 goal, or even 2 goals, are more than nothing at all.
Keep this list small. Baby steps can lead to major lifestyle changes. Drastic/huge lifestyle changes that happen over night, usually leads to eventual relapsing. I’d also
encourage you choose goals in different areas of your life so you don’t overwork or stress any one area.
Maintaining balance as you work toward your resolutions will prevent you from getting anxious and overwhelmed.
4. Visualize the success & challenges
Walk through your typical day and know exactly WHEN and WHERE you will work on your goal(s). Make time in the morning or evening (or both!) to meditate, visualizing what it will look like when you’ve accomplished your goals. How your life would be different in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, etc. If you hit every goal, what does that mean for you? Where will you be?
Questions you can also ask yourself as you prepare for the year ahead are things like: How are you going to be successful? What will your past conditioning say to you? How do you plan to overcome this? What will you need to be successful?
In addition to visualizing your future success and all of the wonderful things that will help you be successful, you need to be very honest with yourself and identify where you could struggle and why. In other words, what some of your limiting beliefs that want you to stay where you are? To remain comfortable? Then, start thinking through how you will coach yourself through this.
Get clear on what might throw you off and make a plan to overcome this relying on your ‘why’ from above. Visualize HOW you will be successful. Visualize you successfully accomplishing your goals.
5. Write down a detailed plan
It’s great to know where you’re going, but you need to lay out the “how” that will get you there. Plans clearly articulated AND WRITTEN DOWN are significantly more likely to be effective. How will you achieve these goals step by step? What is the smallest step you can take each day to set yourself up for success?
Identify the details. Maybe it’s waking up 5 minutes earlier to read, or listening to a language learning podcast on the way to work, or packing healthy snacks the night before you go to work. When will you set aside time for your goals? How long will it take each day? Who is your support system?
Write out your entire success plan as if it is a business plan. Because it is....it is your life's business plan. You are the CEO, the CFO, the COO, and the CIO of your life. Know EVERYTHING and be intentional.
Identify what could cause you to veer off course, and address how you can overcome that on the front end. Let’s say your goal is to get physically stronger: A potential road block might be finding time to work your muscles. How can you address that beforehand? That might mean bringing workout clothes to work and going for a run mid-day, or leaning against a wall for some wall push-ups every time you take a break, or even standing while you’re on callsso you can do calf raises and squats (without video, haha). All of this might require you to have a water bottle on hand all day that you can fill up the night before. Peel back the layers of each detail.
Write out your strategy TODAY so the next January 1st doesn’t come around and you don’t say “oh I’ll just start tomorrow” which then becomes Monday, and then the next, and then the next until you never begin. Put the work in now, lean into this inspired action.
6. Be smart & create microgoals
As you detail your plan, make sure it is reasonable. An exercise I love to recommend is the Four Halves Exercise. Quantify your goal, then cut it in half. Sit with this new goal. Then cut this new number in half. Sit with this new goal. Cut this new goal in half. Sit with this goal again. Cut it in half once more…. The goal
is to make your goal laughably easy. We don’t want our brain to enter the “fight or flight“ mode; Keeping “stupidly simple” goals is a great way to prevent your sympathetic system from engaging. If you started at “50 push-ups” and you’re now at “3 push-ups”, how much more likely are you to absolutely make sure you do 3 a day? Over the course of a year, the person who commits to 3 a day usually ends up doing more, out performing the person with the bigger goal.
If your plan is to read more, start with 5, 10, or 15 minutes a day instead of 5 hours. Avoid committing to goals like “fluent in Italian in 3 months” or “train to run a marathon in 3 weeks”. While you can manifest anything, that doesn’t always mean it aligns with our physical and mental needs. Don’t force things to happen at the expense of your overall well being—that is NOT in alignment.
Aim for healthy progress over quick results. It’s like the saying goes, the longer something takes to achieve, the more precious it is to you. Be patient. We’re making lifestyle changes, not ordering lunch. Push yourself, but not too much. Find the sweet spot between comfortable and challenged. That is where beautiful change occurs.
7. Check-in & adjust
Once a week. Not once a day, once an hour, once a month. Choose one day a week to reflect on the past week. What went well? What didn’t? Allow yourself the curtesy of assessing your goals and tweaking as necessary.
Maybe reading everyday is too much too soon and every other day might work better. Perhaps your guitar lessons need to be 10 minutes instead of an hour. Use this time to reflect on the commitments you kept and didn’t keep the week prior. Allow this to show you what isn’t working and READJUST. Be kind to yourself, you CAN make chamber and you WILL, and you can do this while remaining compassionate to yourself.
Resolutions and goals are not written in stone! You can change them at any time! Make them work with you, not against you. You’re not a failure just because you don’t perfectly follow some arbitrary plan that you created for yourself when you didn’t have all of the information. Let your plans grow with you. Be flexible. Allow adjustments. We’re all different, we all have different motivations, and we each need to figure out what system works best for us.
Trial and error is a GREAT tool to identify what YOU need for long-term success, especially when there are SO MANY methods that can be used.
And, use this time to congratulate yourself! Even if you only read once this past week—is it more than you were reading last year? Last week? Great! That’s improvement. Each step in the right direction is success. Praise yourself for your progress, any progress. Progress over perfection.
8. Reset as often as needed
This goes hand in hand with step 7. In addition to checking in, allow yourself to pause, reset, and try again. We can’t live in the black and white world if we want to be mentally healthy people. If you have a bad day, week, month, that’s ok. Pause, reflect on what happens and why, reevaluate your plan, and try again. Reset mentally and energetically.
You do not have to reset on a ‘Monday’, or tomorrow, you can reset at any moment. There are no rules for you to break other than the ones you create for yourself.
Your goals and resolutions will likely be a part of a larger lifestyle change. If this is the case, this is a huge undertaking. Changing a lifestyle that has been in place for years, if not decades, is a challenge. Realize that life is about making mistakes and learning from them. Do the same with your resolutions. Learn how to do better as you get up and try again.
Lifestyle changes are the most rewarding, but they’re also the most difficult because your ego will fear the change. That’s okay. Have compassion for the side of you that is afraid of change, and kindly do it anyway.
BONUS TIP!
While all of these tips will help you manifest success, I would be remiss if I didn't specifically address manifestation tips as well. Allow manifestation to help you. Utilize all the tools you’ve learned from myself and others to help you make this change.
KNOW that your success is coming so the Universe can work to make it a little easier, visualize having your success, take inspired action when your intuition is calling to you, speak your success into existence using your words and affirmations, be grateful for the small steps and don’t forget that they’re also little successes, and maintain your positivity while you’re on this journey.
You. Got. This. Know that you already have your success.
And if you want some help, don't forget to check out my Year Ahead Planning Workshop, Available NOW for only $30, so you can get started within the next 5 minutes!
Have a fabulous rest of your week, and I will catch y’all next Monday. Until then, go out there and manifest some miracles.
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