“Happy new years buddy. I made a resolution to hang out with smarter and more attractive friends. You take care of yourself” - Dan Cummins
You don’t need a NYR. You need a plan, you need to take action. You need to start doing exactly what you said you were going to do the last three years. I can honestly say, I have always thought New Year’s resolutions are dumb as fuck. Not even on some hater shit, but for a multitude of reasons. Yeah, were gonna start this year and this blog post off with the negative shit. Don’t worry baby birds, I’ll feed you at the end with some genuine positivity and how I structure my year to set myself up and hopefully yourself up with success. I honestly hope 2024 is the best year of your life yet.
Let start with some quick statistics:
38% of of US adults set NYR
23% quit in the FIRST WEEK, 64% quit by the first month
43% EXPECT to give up by February
9% successfully keep their NYR
Well, good thing life isn’t a fucking math test. My distain for NYR are multifold. To start. Why the fuck do you need to wait to the start of a year to make a change. Is your life not important enough to make the change now? Why wait, why delay and keep pushing off your life for some magic number on a calendar? The best time to start is yesterday, the second best time is right now. Not tomorrow, not someday, not one day, not on the 1st of January. Take a minute to ask yourself why you keep waiting for some permission slip to start taking control of your life. I get it. It seems like a “fresh start” and most of the country is riding a high into the New Year, it makes is easier to ride the wave of excitement. Clearly, that excitement fades within a week, and you’re filled with hope. It is a great tool and powerful emotion, but hope it isn’t a strategy. Quit putting your dreams and goals on hold for a magic number.
As I speak to you, I am also speaking to myself. I am not here to shit on your emotional high and motivational spike. I just want to see you win. I give myself tough love and you are no different. Honestly though. What is going to fucking change? Ask yourself. How many times have you set a new years resolution that you are just going to quit. How many times are you going to keep saying the same shit over and over. Oh 2022 was my warm up year, 2023 I’m getting my life right, 2024 is going to be different. Is it? Is it going to be any different if you keep playing life like you have unlimited time? Year after year after you quit because its too hard, you’re too tired, you’re sad. Life is always going to throw shit your way. Its time to take some radical accountability and make the changes you promised yourself, your friends, your family. When is the shit really going to change. Nothing changes if nothing changes. I asked and still do ask myself these same questions because I found myself using every excuse in the book. I used to tell myself I’m not smart enough to work for myself, I need to go to college to learn. I told myself I was going to lose weight year after year and next thing I knew my fat ass got up to 300lbs. I felt sorry for myself. I lied to myself year after year. I destroyed so many parts of myself by lying to me over and over. Ironically, I started to change myself on January 1st 2020. I did it abruptly. I failed at a lot, made many mistakes. I let it become all consuming in my pursuit. There is a difference between all consuming and all in. All consuming is where you will let it consume your life, you will burn anything in your path to get to the destination. You will ruin relationships and “sacrifice” it all for the end goal. It did not end well for me and I had a lot of growing to do.
All in is the goal. Becoming all in is the healthy version of changing. All in means you will do what it takes to get to the goal, without sacrificing your relationships or yourself. It won’t consume your soul and emotions. You will feel tired and drained, but not burnt out and exhausted. This was one of the first major lessons I learned when it came to changing and doing exactly what I said I was going to do. I promised some positivity and the tips and tools I use to make change, without using a dumb ass NYR. A quick simple one is making a list of what you are leaving behind in the last year and not bringing with you. You won’t bring negative self talk. You won’t bring phony excuses. You won’t bring a limited mindset. Sometimes it’s easier to talk about what we don’t want, so flip it on its head and make the most out of what you don’t want.
The biggest change to make instead of a NYR is sitting down and making a list of goals you want to accomplish. What gets written down gets tracked what gets tracked gets measured what gets measured can be changed. Take some time and be honest with yourself and write some goals. There is no wrong answer. Make them as big or as small as you want. This is your world, we’re just living in it. A thing to remember is if you set goals so massive and you don’t attain them you will probably feel some type of way. If you set goals too small, you won’t enjoy the feeling of accomplishment. If you stack enough small wins daily, weekly, and monthly, that will get you to the big unreasonable goals. They go hand in hand. Use them both. I follow a very simple process and it has helped me achieve more every year.
I sit and write out my yearly goals. I make a blend of some physical, financial, emotionally filling, and self development.
I create this on my whiteboard and I break them down.
On the top left I write out my monthly financial goals and what I need to do to get the yearly goals. On the right I list out the physical / emotional / self dev.
Then on the bottom I break it into 7 different days. I list out what I need to do daily to hit the monthly targets.
At the end of everyday I take a green marker or a red marker and I make a check or an X.
The small daily goals feed into the monthly goals feed into the yearly goals. This is developing an actual plan. Not a NYR throwing shit at a wall and hoping something sticks. You can visualize daily what the goals and objectives are. Its much harder to quit when you see it daily. Its it full proof? I don’t know, but it sure as hell helps me accomplish my goals. Do I hit every goal every year? Not even fucking close. But it is a hell of a lot better than waiting for a magic number on a calendar to make up a last minute New Year’s resolution.