What to do with 2020 resolutions

I have seen so many funny memes about 2020, how it’s broken and we need a new one. I get it! The year has turned us all upside down….But I hope in this post to challenge us all to reframe our mindset about the year 2020.

Of course, I have absolutely no idea what resolutions or goals you were hoping to achieve this year. It very well may be true that some of them are impossible. I know there are some of you that have lost jobs, have lost loved ones. I am truly, truly sorry if that is your situation. I honestly can’t express how much my heart is going out to ones whose lives have deeply been affected for the worse during this time.

With the fact that we have such varied lives and varied personal values, it’s very hard to address specific goals or resolutions, but hopefully, by drawing on the principles of my own experience, I am hoping that you might find something that applies to you too. Let’s dig in!!

I think the absolute first task here is to sort your resolutions and goals into two categories… {1} things I can still do and {2} things I can do nothing about at the moment.

I realised for myself that I mentally shelved some things, but actually, there were still some steps that I could take. For example, we wanted to get the kitchen redecorated. We had got to the stage of planning it all when the lockdown started. But I realised I still was able to source things online and get them ordered. I don’t know when they will arrive, that’s out of my control, but I know that I have gone as far as I can go with it. I also was able to go through what is here and come up with a big ‘donate’ pile. I am not sure when that will be possible but again, it’s ready to go.

Enough about my story…the principle to take away is: review if there is any more steps that can be done towards your goal happening, even just one more step.

Next step is to evaluate your plans. For some categories, you may not be able to go any further. But for other categories, that you can work on, maybe you had set out a plan for each month of the year…well, if you have time available to you, double up the months, try to do two months worth of that goal. Later on in the year, you might be thankful that you hustled on the things that you could do.

Is that step a little vague? Here is an example..Well, I’ve gone as far as I can go with the kitchen decorating, so that is at a standstill. But, I do have work goals, like work towards starting my coaching sessions. So, I have been really hustling on putting together my processes. I have been working with some kind willing volunteers, online of course, to see how my processes actually work. There are also some personal goals that I am working on, and now I am able to focus my energy on really giving them space in my life. Does that make sense? Basically, change your time plans, to suit what you can now focus on. There! That was much easier.

Another step is to evaluate your choices. Maybe when you sat down at the start of January and wrote out your goals and resolutions, you may have been focused in a certain way. But now, many people that now have extra time, have expressed that they feel the slowed down pace has been good for them, it’s given them time to really analyze what is important to them and what is in alignment with their values. This may be different to what it was in January. So now is the time to really choose what you want to accomplish by the end of the year. Maybe things have changed completely for you now.

My final step is …. find your motivation! Things may not be happening as we had planned or imagined. Life can be very unpredictable can’t it. Well, that might just give us a knock in the teeth. Sure! We might face uncertainty, fear, anxiety. These feelings are the most natural thing in the world. Let’s recognize something incredible… we can get our motivation back, we can bounce back, we can be resilient and we can stand back up on our feet after falling down. We also can figure out how! Please, believe in your abilities! Look at the steps above. Figure out even one or two things you can do. See if you can figure out a different goal, an achievable step and a new strength. I really hope that if you needed this, that it was helpful.