2021: Another New Framework for New Year Goals
Happy New Year!
At the start of the new year, I wanted to reflect on how the past year went and what my goals and plans are for the new year. This past year I changed my goals from yearly to monthly, and shared my monthly updates and progress on this blog. This new framework worked well for me as I was able to update my goals based on what I was working on at the time. Also, I could always make new goals based on any new interests I gained during the year. With that being said, I will continue this new habit I’ve formed of updating my goals and keeping track of my progress on a monthly basis this year as well.
While I do have some specific goals for the next month, I also have a new overall themes which I will try and follow during the course of the entire year. The “themes” or overarching ideas which I want to implement are to build good habits, be consistent, and do good and focused work. Allow me to flesh out what I mean by each of these.
Good Habits
Up until now, I’ve been working towards achieving a goal of some kind where the goal is some “end destination”. For example, last year I set a goal to aim to read 20 books this year. While this helps me plan out how much reading I would have to do on a daily basis to meet my goal, I’ve rarely, if ever, been able to follow the schedule I’ve created for myself in advance. This isn’t because I can’t stick to a schedule (although, that may be part of it), but more because it’s hard to know what my schedule will look like half a year from now. Even when I plan out my schedule for the next day, I often have found that something unpredictable happens every day, and as a result, my neatly laid out calendar is rendered useless by the end of the day.
However, instead of trying to plan out everything to achieve some extremely long term goal, like trying to read 20 books in a year, I will work towards building up the habit of reading everyday. Whether or not I read 20 books is something I’ll know by the end of the year, but if I aim to read even 10 pages every day, over time, this will turn into 20, 30, 40 pages, and sooner or later I’ll be able to read more than 20 books a year.
By not focusing on the end result, but rather, the process of how I would achieve the real goal I’m aiming to accomplish (to read more), I think I’ll be able to make habits that last longer and benefit me more than just setting a goal I may or may not be able to meet in the time period I’ve set for it.
That’s not to say I won’t be setting any long term goals ever. It’s good to have a vision of where you want to go. But instead of focusing on what I will hypothetically accomplish in a year, I’m shifting my focus to what I have to do today in order to get to where I want to be.
Be Consistent
This ties in pretty closely to the last one, but this focuses on how I plan to actually develop those habits. The issue I faced when working on long term goals was that I always felt I had A WHOLE YEAR to get started. It would be okay if I skipped reading today, and tomorrow, and the next day, because I always had all of next month to start reading. But this, of course, would turn into pushing my reading from January to February, and from February to March, and from March to November. By December, I was trying to read a book a week in order to at least get halfway through my goal.
In order to not repeat my mistakes, instead of setting a hard goal of 20 or 30 books, I will try and work towards building up a habit of reading every day. In January, if I can read even one page a day, I’ll be happy. And same for all my other habits I want to build up this year. Overall, if I can read a little more each day, sleep a little earlier, and work out a bit longer each day, I know that I am improving at least somewhat: by the end of the year, these micro changes will add up to big improvements.
Do Good and Focused Work
One thing I’ve come to realize is that the ability to be productive while doing work correlates to how focused I am while doing that work. I recently created a 10 page long report about how to manage one’s finances after graduating. I planned to present that report at the start of the year, but even though I had thought of the idea in early December, I kept putting off starting it (which is counterintuitive given that I should have probably started it as early as possible to give myself more time). However, as the deadline I had set for myself was approaching, I realized I would have no other choice but to sit down and begin working on it. After slowly building up momentum, I managed to finish the entire report in detail in two days, even though I had given myself a week to finish it. I was able to do so not because I was rushing, but because I was solely focused on completing that one task. As a result, I was able to actually work quite efficiently and get it done a lot faster than I thought I would be able to. This, of course, is not new information to me: I am aware that when I’m focused, I can actually finish things quickly. But the issue is that I often forget. So, in order to build up my ability to focus, I’m going to treat it like a habit. Every day, I’ll try to focus for longer and longer periods of time until, hopefully, I’ll be able to sit down each day, and do a few hours of continuous focused work twice or three times a day in order to get as much work done as possible each day. Building up the time should help me increase my stamina for working for long periods of time and help me achieve all the things I want to do in a day.
So those are the three main themes I plan to base my other goals around this year. Besides that, I also have some more generic goals I plan on following through with. One is to continue my current streak of doing well in school and graduate (yay!). Another is to continue this blog and maybe even write a bit more than once a month, perhaps on other topics I’m interested in or something new I’ve learned about that month. And finally, since I’m graduating this year, I want to learn more about personal finance and be as ready and knowledgeable as possible for when I start earning my first regular salary.
That’s all for now. I hope you all have a wonderful year ahead and are able to continue being productive, healthy, and happy. See you soon!
