8 Easy Steps to turn Resolutions into Reality

by Cary Farrell

July 22, 2019

How committed are we on January 1 to keep to our New Year’s Resolutions?  How disappointed and frustrated are we by January 15 when we haven’t kept them? These commitments and disappointments happen throughout the year as well, whether you commit to eat better, get more sleep, read more, save more money, get organized or commit to any number of goals that you want to attain.  Writing down your goals is the first step to achieving them and here are eight easy steps that need to happen after that to turn your resolutions or goals into reality.  
 

Step 1 – Write down your resolutions or goals.

Step 2 – Determine if your goals are your own.  Take a hard look at the list to determine if your goals are your own or if they are goals that you feel others are expecting of you. Working on the goals you are passionate about will make a difference in your success.

Step 3 – Prioritize your resolutions or goals.  You can’t tackle everything at once.  Change takes time and effort and focusing on more than one at a time can overwhelm you.

Step 4 – Take goal number 1 and break it down into bite-size pieces.

1. Determine what the steps are to actually accomplish your goal.
2. Decide how much time it will take you to accomplish each step.
3. Schedule each step on the calendar.

Step 5 – Tell someone about your goal.  Sharing your goal allows someone to cheer you on for support and can offer you some accountability.

Step 6 – Reassess your goals.  Continually analyze your goals to see if there are ways to make any steps easier. If your goal is to get out the door on time each day, periodically assess what you can do the night before to make the morning routine easier.

Step 7 – Don’t beat yourself up!  When life happens and you fall off the “goal wagon,” don’t let it get you down.  Let each new day be a fresh start and don’t give up when you don’t succeed the first few times. Change is difficult and takes time.

Step 8 – Complete each goal.  Once you feel that you have goal #1 broken down into a  successful plan, go back to step 4 and pick the next goal.  Experts say it takes 21 days to develop a habit so give yourself a good 21 days to work at your goal! You might work on some goals simultaneously but don’t start too many at once.  

Our home is quickly becoming an empty nest as our last daughter finishes up her senior year and heads off to college.  Because we homeschooled our children, I was used to planning and preparing three meals a day for a crowd for many years.  Now with just my husband, daughter and me at home, there are many days our schedules conflict more than they coincide. I have to learn how to cook for fewer people and to prepare fewer meals in the week.  My goal is to eat healthy, but I had to change the way I have always prepared meals because of the shift in our household.  

Using Step 4, here’s how I broke down my goal into bite-size pieces and made my resolution a reality:

My GOAL:  Eat better and have flexible meals ready.

1.       Prepare 9 pots of soup to freeze in quart ziplock bags.

2.       Choose which soups to prepare.     time: 30 min          Tuesday, Dec 30th

3.       Clean out the pantry and fridge and look for items that I need to buy at the store and make grocery list.                                        time: hour and a half   Tuesday, Dec 30th

4.       Grocery shop.                                       time: one hour             Wednesday, Dec 31

5.       Cook/cool/freeze soups.              time: all day                Thursday, Jan 1

I have been enjoying soups in my thermos for lunch between jobs and at night for dinner when I don’t have time to cook! I picked up some bread and rolls from Great Harvest and baked some muffins to individually wrap and freeze to go with my soups.  I have shared some soups with others and I still have a freezer full of soup. My goal is to keep cooking a pot of soup a week to add to my freezer stash until I am sick of soup!  Cooking 9 pots of soup was a big project and I was pretty tired at the end of the day, but it was so worth the effort as I am enjoying my soup each day.  If cooking that much at once is too overwhelming then just double any recipe that your family likes and freeze the leftovers to have a quick meal in a couple of weeks or freeze in smaller containers for lunches.

No matter what your goals or resolutions are, unless you write them down, prioritize them, break them down into bite-size pieces and schedule them, they will only stay goals and not real accomplishments.