New Years Resolutions : Love or Loathe?

For me, it’s definitely love. Do I fail to keep my resolutions? Of course I do! In the past I would beat myself up over this, allow myself to go into victim mentality by blaming my failure on other things. This was a contributing factor to my hatred of January for sure, and kept me stuck in a place where I didn’t feel stretched and challenged.

Since doing the inner work, I now know that success does not come without failure. Failure is where the real learning begins. For this reason I continue to make resolutions and set myself goals, and you and your teen should too!

So how do we set goals that don’t make us feel shame and worthlessness when we fail to meet them? How do we set goals that we can keep? And if we fail, how do we pick ourselves up and try again?

It is so important that goals are set from a place of kindness, abundance, gratitude and curiosity, and I always have a few that feel stretchy too.

Setting achievable goals

Goals need to be meaningful and attainable. There also needs to be a plan of action in place, things that we can do daily or weekly to keep on track. If you and your teen are not sure where to start then follow these steps:

1. REFLECT ON LAST YEAR

What were the wins? How did that feel? Do you want to feel more of that this year? How can you do that? In her book ‘Playing Big’ Tara Mohr talks about ‘gift goals’; goals that feel like a treat rather than a chore. What you think and what you feel about a goal is so important to tune into. If it feels like a ‘should’ goal then it is not coming from a place of kindness and gratitude. Getting excited about meeting these goals is your intuition telling you that it is the right one for you. So if you loved feeling a certain way when certain things happened last year, get curious about how you can bring more of that into your life this year. Write it down. Get your teen to do the same.

2. GET SPECIFIC AND BREAK IT DOWN      

Your teen may have written something about a grade they got in a particular subject. They tell you they want to feel more of this academic success. When asked how can they do this this year they may write something like ‘Get a 7 in Physics’. The problem with this goal is that it is too specific. It can be an end goal (if it is truly realistic-they may want to look again at the 7 if they have been consistently scoring a 3 up until now).

They need to break that down. For example, ‘Get a 7 in Physics’ could be broken down into their goal grade in coursework, their goal marks out of 40 for the exam, and so on. Drilling down into what a 7 is made up of will help them set action points too. Once they have established the goal then get them to write it down and display it somewhere where they will see it every day. Above their desk would be a perfect spot!

3. DEVELOP AN ACTION PLAN.

What do they have to do to achieve their goal? What steps can they take each day or week to bring them closer to that goal? Help them set action points, step by step revision tasks that they will complete over the coming days or weeks leading up to the exams.

4. TRACK PROGRESS      

Once they have set action points, schedule in progress checks. This could happen on a Sunday morning, for example. The purpose of this is to review what action they have taken so far. Are they improving? If so great! If not, then perhaps their revision strategies need rejigging. Do they need to try some new methods?

The progress check is so important because often kids think of the end point rather than the journey. This is the same for you and your goals too. How often are you reviewing your progress? Do you still want this or has your goal changed or shifted? Do they need rewriting?

5. REMOVE BARRIERS

What is currently getting in the way of you reaching your goal? It could be something like time. If so, what can you take away to make more time? Check your screentime. Are you spending more than an hour on social media every day? Challenge yourself to bring that down to 30 minutes to make more time for working towards your goal. If it’s a mindset issue that is blocking you, such as fear, then take the necessary steps to work through it. Ask yourself some questions and journal about it. Why are you afraid of achieving this goal? How is not achieving it keeping you safe? Write down all the thoughts and feelings that come up.

Setting goals and resolutions is always worth it. Don’t become one of the anti-new years resolutions tribe. Reframe and set goals that make you feel excited and challenged. And when you fail (and we all do!), pick yourself up, get curious about why it happened, and ask yourself what step you can take today to get yourself back on track.