Resolutions
Resolution (noun): a firm decision to do or not to do something.
Happy New Year! This is the time for the infamous New Years Resolution. Some people look down on resolutions but I for one really enjoy this time of year for goal planning. Me and my wife spend a lot of time between Christmas and New Years planning our goals for the next year, individual goals and goals we aspire to meet together. We assess our goals from the year before and make new ones for the coming year. I’ve always been a dreamer so I suppose that goal planning is so fun to me because it allows my brain to ponder what’s possible. It’s a time of hope and excitement. It can allow us to bring focus to our life and where it’s headed. It gives us an opportunity to gauge our progress in life. Which doesn’t just have to be how much money you make or what your job title is. It could be how your marriage is doing. How good of a Father/Mother have you been? What could you do better? When’s the last time you took your spouse on a date? How often did you read your Bible in the past year?
The top New Year's Resolutions according to a survey from Fatherly.com are:
Exercise more
Eat healthier
Lose weight
Save more money
Spend more time with family and friends
So to summarize we want to look & feel better, with more money while spending more time with the people we love. I can’t really argue with that! It’s very interesting to me that the top 3 resolutions are fitness related. Maybe it’s all the food (extra pounds) that the holidays bring that puts fitness at the top of our resolution list.
While you might have already made resolutions for this year or maybe you haven’t started yet. I want to share some tips for setting effective goals (resolutions) for 2023.
Set goals in all of the important areas of your life. For me that’s:
My faith
My marriage
My family
My health
My career/Money
Put them in writing. Write your goals out and be as specific as possible.
Identify habits that will help you reach your goals and then identify habits that will keep you from reaching your goals. Focus on practicing the positive habits while avoiding the negative habits.
Schedule events ahead of time when applicable. For example, one of my goals is to take my wife on a date 2 times a month. So I go on my Google calendar and add a Date Night every two weeks. This can serve as a reminder to plan this time together even when life gets busy.
Schedule a time periodically to review your goals and assess your progress. You may realize that you’re not progressing as you thought and it could motivate you to work harder toward that goal. Or maybe you reached the goal early and you can set a new goal to further that area of your life.
Give yourself grace. If you set a good challenging goal then you will face adversity as you chase it. There will be ups and downs. You may have periods where you’re very disciplined working towards your goal and you may occasionally “fall off the wagon”. Don’t get discouraged and just focus on moving forward, progress over perfection.
Lastly, I would like to share some of my goals for 2023…
Independently read the Bible 10 minutes per day and finish a Bible app plan that I’ve started to read the New Testament from start to finish.
For me and my wife to go on two dates a month. For all my parents out there you know the hardest part of this is finding/making the time and coordinating childcare.
Spend more one-on-one time with my kids. When you have multiple kids you find that the youngest always demands the most attention. Me and Cheyenne have talked about working to make sure that we spend some intentional alone time with each of the kids.
In my weight loss journey I’ve been in a plateau for a few months and I need to get back in gear to reach one of my big goals. That is to get below 300 pounds for the first time since…well I don’t know exactly but probably not long out of high school.
I couldn’t be happier with my career choice moving to Freedom Academy and I can’t wait to play my role in helping it grow and finishing our 1st year strong.
With Build Performance I’ve been able to work with 27 different people on reaching their goals in our first 6 months. This next year my goal is for that number to double. I also plan to begin exploring and educating myself on how to find more space for our gym. We’re approaching the point where space is our limiting factor and that’s a good problem to have.
So dream big, dream specific and let’s get to work. If I can help you reach your goals in any way please don’t hesitate to reach out.
