Are New Year's Resolutions Worth Setting?

It's the season to make plans for how you're going to handle 2022. And although a lot of people have some great aspirations, many will fail within the first month or two. Most of the time, it's because people set unrealistic New Year's Resolutions for themselves.

The second part of the failure is not putting in the effort to see them through. Thirdly, a lack of motivation will make success far more difficult.

Why New Year's Resolutions Matter

Setting goals of what you want to achieve this year can be inspiring. They can also boost self-confidence and esteem levels should you meet one of your more important goals.

It's the sense of pride in your accomplishments that is the real reward. Being able to look back on the year and realize how much you've achieved is an incredible feeling.

However, they can also have the opposite effect should you not accomplish something. A lot of people will become overly frustrated and more down on themselves when they don't meet their yearly goals.

But when used correctly with a good plan of action in place, a lot of realistic objectives can be reached within a year. It all really comes down to what you want to achieve and how you're going about doing so.

How to Make Realistic New Year's Resolutions

If you truly want to get the most out of making New Year's Resolutions, there is a right and wrong way to go about making them. For one thing, you need to keep them realistic.

Simply saying, "I want to make a million dollars this year" isn't going to be worthwhile. That is unless you're already capable of making that much money, which most of us are not.

And that's the issue with a lot of people making resolutions: delusions of grandeur.

I'm not saying that you can't plan for something major. Just make sure it's realistic according to your own level of motivation and capability.

Only Focus on Self Improvement

For me, making a New Year's Resolution is all about self-improvement. This can be either for personal or professional lifestyles. Being more today than I was yesterday is something that constantly drives me forward.

Don't worry about what someone else is capable of doing. It's called "self-improvement," not "them-improvement."

The best resolutions you can establish are ones that focus on what you can do to improve your life. Even if it's just by a little bit, it's still an improvement.

So, instead of saying you want to make a million dollars, start with just making more this year than you did last. Even if it's only by $100, it's still an improvement and can help fuel motivation to continue.

My point is that a New Year's Resolution doesn't need to be something grandiose or extreme.

For the sake of this post, let's say that I decide to write more words next year. So, I will have to come up with a plan to write more than 720,000 words.

Put a Plan of Action in Place

Remember, New Year's Resolutions mean nothing without putting in an effort. And some goals will need a carefully thought out plan of action to steer you in the right direction.

Let's say you decide to lose weight in 2022. What is that going to look like? Are you planning on going to the gym, and if so, what will your routine be? Do you just want to lose weight, or are you planning on adding muscle mass?

The more thought you put into the things you really want to achieve, the clearer the picture comes of what you need to do. Just make sure you're not overwhelming yourself with the small details.

Also, keep in mind you don't need to have a precise plan of action all at once. In fact, you'll undoubtedly change a few things up throughout the year as time marches on.

Different strategies may present themselves, or perhaps you found something that gets you closer to the goals that you want to add to your daily routine.

The point of all this, though, is that you need to have some kind of idea about what you need to do to get to where you want to be.

In order to surpass 720,000 words written in a year, I need to write at least 1,973 per day. In reality, I can do this before lunch. But this is a plan of action I can take to meet my goal for the year.

Find Ways to Motivate Yourself to Continue

Now comes the most difficult part of New Year's Resolutions...the motivation.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why so many people fail is because of a lack of motivation to continue throughout the entire year. Seriously, how many people do you know buy gym memberships only to quit three or four months in?

Motivation can come in a myriad of ways. And everyone is different when it comes to feeling inspired and driven every morning. Explore different methods to get in the right mindset to accomplish your goals.

In the grand scheme of things, you're only in competition with yourself. No one else's goals impact your life in the slightest. It all comes down to having the motivation to become more today than you were yesterday.

In my example, I have gamified writing. For me, it's fun to keep track of my daily progress in a spreadsheet to make sure I am ahead of where I need to be. Then again, I'm a bit of a data dork.

Find what works to keep your head in the game over the long term.

What Are Your New Year's Resolutions?

Personally, I have a lot of plans set for 2022. In fact, I have dubbed it, "The Year of the Book." This means I plan on publishing more works, probably non-fiction pieces.

But remember, it's not about what I can do. A successful resolution depends on what you can do. Just make sure it's something you're ready to commit to and see all the way through.

Strive to become better than you are today.