Photo by Karina Carvalho
So we’re a month into 2017 at this point, how exciting! New year, new you… right? Since it’s a brand new year, have you made any lofty resolutions to overhaul your life? I have. However, in 2017, I’ve gone about it a little differently than in years past. This year, instead of making a few (or, let’s face it, a lot) of difficult goals to achieve HUGE changes to my life, in the name of becoming a “better me,” I took a different approach.
In my quest to become increasingly more in tune with the things that feed and detract from my productivity, I’ve done a lot of reflecting and a little research. I’ve come to realize that there were two driving factors for whether or not I’ve achieved my past goals: my priorities, and my habits.
Your priorities and habits are inextricably linked to your goals and achievements in life – your priorities decide what you do, and your habits determine how you do those things.
One of the reasons I realized my goals were a bit out of whack with my priorities is actually this blog. I haven’t posted since September 25, 2016… four months ago. When I started this blog, did I intend to take a break for that long? Of course not. I’ve had “write a blog post” on my to-do list every week for the past four months. The questions I have to ask myself is why I never managed to check this “to-do” off my list.
I could go with the easy excuse: I fell suddenly ill in mid-October and was hospitalized for two weeks, and in recovery for more than 6 weeks following. I didn’t return to work until mid-November, and after 8 hours of work the only thing I could really do was eat and sleep. So that accounts for 2 months of my absence. However, when I traced this back, I realized that I hadn’t posted for two and a half weeks in September and early October when my blog had just launched, before my illness. Then, I was well enough in late November to start up again, and certainly thought about it. However, no action followed my so-called desire to write for this blog. So what happened there?
Looking deeper into that excuse reveals something: blogging was not a priority for me for the past four months. This makes sense when I think about it; I was prioritizing my relationship with my boyfriend in September and early October, my health in October and November, family time in November and December, and my career in January. Of course I didn’t make time to blog!
So think about any resolutions you’ve made in past years that you’ve achieved, then think about the resolutions that you haven’t achieved. I’m willing to bet that the goals you’ve reached were in line with your priorities at the time. For example, many people may make a resolution to lose weight each January, but fall short and quit within a few months. Besides the fact that a goal to “lose weight” is vague and difficult to measure, there is also often no priority shift associated with the making of the goal. If family time is more of a priority than losing weight, for example, than a person may choose to go home directly after work to see their kids rather than hitting the gym for an hour.
This is not to say that any priority is better than another. They’re all completely personal. However, in order to achieve a goal, you have two choices: make goals that align with your current priorities, or re-prioritize in order to mentally categorize your goal as one of the most important things in your life.
If you prioritize relaxing and unwinding after work over working towards your masters degree, you will probably find yourself finishing your latest binge series on Netflix instead of studying for your GREs.
Take a moment now to write down the categories that you would consider your priorities. To jog your memory, here’s a quick list: Health, Family, Finance, Work Performance, Productivity, Personal Development, Spiritual, Me Time, etc. Pick the top three and number them most important to least important.
Now take a moment to write down the top three things you would like to achieve this year. This includes whatever resolution(s) you set for yourself on January 1st. What categories do these goals fall into? If the categories do not match up, consider the two options above: make new goals, or shift your priorities around.
Why three priorities and three goals? Advanced habit-formers may be able to create and maintain a new habit each quarter, but I know that I usually require a bit of time (about a month) to track my old (sometimes usually bad) habits before breaking into the new ones. Therefore, this year I will focus in trimesters, consisting of four months each, which is long enough to focus on creating habits and track progress, but short enough to maintain my focus. By dedicating yourself fully to a new habit that aligns with one of your highest priorities for four months, you will have 3 rock solid beneficial habits by next year! That’s far more encouraging than making one insanely huge “new year’s resolution,” or fifty small, unfocused ones, and then throwing in the towel in February.
Your Turn:
Did you make progress on your New Year’s Resolutions this past month in January? Is a priority shift or goal re-assessment in order?
