New Year’s Resolutions Gone Wrong

I am on a mission to help overwhelmed and overworked moms find the time and space to create a life they mostly love.

I know you are all busy, so let’s get to it.

Today we will talk about why New Year resolutions and goal-setting fail and a new approach to setting and achieving your goals.

Specifically, we will go over the following:

How we have set goals in the past.

Two mindset shifts to acheive your goals.

How to personalize your goals to you.

I know New Year's resolutions can be polarizing. Some of you swear by them, and others see it as a big waste of your time. But most of us have goals such as being more organized, decluttering our house, or losing weight. If you need help sticking to your goals, you will definitely find this post useful. 

How we have set goals in the past

Do any of these sentences sound familiar?

This time I will lose weight.

This time I will be more organized.

I will stop procrastinating.

My house will always be clean.

I will stop yelling at my kids.

These have been some of my big resolutions in the past. I would identify the “problem” and search for the latest popular system to help me. This has led me to try some useful and some crazy fads. I’ve tried keto, low carb, Atkins, and Weight Watchers. I have bought countless different planners like full focus (which is gathering dust on my shelf) and read every book on how to get stuff done. And don’t get me started on the decluttering and home organizing systems I have tried. I think I need a system to declutter my decluttering books. Whatever the goal, I knew that the problem was that I just hadn’t found the perfect method to fix me. If I could just find that, then this time, I would be successful. Whatever the goal was, I knew that the problem was that I needed the perfect system.

The thing is, there is no such thing as a perfect system that will fix all of your problems. Equally true is that all of these systems can work. They fail more because of your mindset and less because of the actual process. This is a good thing because you can set yourself up for success when you shift your mindset.

Two mindset shifts to achieve your goals

So why do all these systems seem to keep failing for you? There are two big ways we set ourselves up for failure from the beginning. The first is that we don’t personalize our goals. What does that mean? We don’t consider who we are and where we are in our lives. We expect to become completely different and don’t consider what we value and want out of life. 

The second reason is that we don’t remove the clutter, from our days and minds. We add these systems onto our already crazy busy days. There is simply not enough time or space in your life for anything else. We also don’t clear the mental clutter, thoughts, and beliefs that are holding us back. These could be things that you have been saying to yourself your whole life, such as:

I’m just not organized.

I’m a procrastinator.

I can’t lose weight.

I’m not smart enough or good enough. 

This is just not possible.

When we personalize our goals to who we are and remove the clutter, we set ourselves up for success. When we have a clear vision of who we are, our goals feel like a natural expression of ourselves. Today, we will focus on personalizing your goals, and then next week, we will explore how to remove the clutter. 

How to personalize your goals to you.

When was the last time you thought about who you are and what you want? As working moms, we often think we need to defer our needs and wants to take care of our families and succeed at work. When we continually do this, we become burnt out and dissatisfied with our lives. We start to think we are the problem and need to change when the opposite is true. If you don’t know who you are and what you value, you will never be able to plan days you love. 

So what does that mean, and how do we do this? We start by identifying our core values. A couple of years ago, I worked with a life coach who took me through some exercises to help me determine my core values. I know this is an overused phrase, but it literally changed the way I viewed my life and the world. It gave me the insight to look at my days and goals and see if they aligned with what I wanted from life. I could let go of things and ideas that just weren’t me. And it helped me realize that some of the things that I dreaded doing actually were important to me.

Now I know! When most of us hear core values, we groan and think of a corporate list of values that hangs on a poster in the hallway gathering dust. The reason these values feel so empty is that most corporations set these values but they don’t embody them in their day-to-day activities. This is not what I am talking about here. Your personal core values are about defining and being clear about what is important to you and what makes you feel the most you. Then you use this information every day to create the life, home, body, and relationships that you love. 

When I defined my core values and looked at my day, it was so obvious why I was feeling exhausted and depleted. I wasn’t consistently doing the things that were essential for me. This completely changed how I looked at my day. I used to have a checklist of all the things I needed to get done in a day. I would dread the tasks on the list and bounce from frantically trying to get it all done to avoid the work and procrastinating. When I aligned my days and my tasks with what I valued, my mindset shifted. Sure I still have a list of tasks, but I can look at them and know that each one is filling one of my values. I am not always excited to do every task, but I know that even the dreaded tasks still feel important to me. However, even the tasks that I dread.

Your core values are who you are right now. This is not about trying to create some new and super-improved version of you. This is about getting really clear on the person you are. Not more organized. Not thinner. Not more of anything. 

This week I would love for you all to create a list of your core values. I like to stick to around five. When you try more than that, you tend to get pulled in too many directions. A list of five forces you to constrain to what is absolutely the most important. When you have your five, read them every day. These are not affirmations. You are not trying to convince yourself to believe something. These are the essence of you and when you read them, you should feel like you are home. 

If you want help identifying your core values and how to use them sign up for the All the Things You: Core Values package. I will take you through a 60-minute coaching session to identify your core values and how to use them to redesign your life. 

Next week 

Next week we are going to look at how you can use your core values to reach your goals. 

Drop me an email or DM me on Instagram. I’d love to hear what core values you discovered. 

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