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It’s that time of year again: after copious amounts of roast potatoes, not knowing what day it is, and putting a dent in your life savings to go and sing Aud Lang Syne with a bunch of strangers, the dust has settled, and the New Year is here. But what will 2025 bring?
It’s time to make a list and write down some resolutions… well, kind of.
Trade Vague Goals for Measurable Ones
Like a lot of people, I’ve made my fair share of resolutions, and unlike roast potatoes, I’ve failed to tame a good portion of them.
I think it’s particularly when you’re young, it’s hard to decide what to do with your weekend, so planning goals for an entire year of my life is a pretty daunting task.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was at university, so when January came, I was more concerned with making sure my essay was written according to the MHRA style guide then I was about setting goals to meet and reflect upon 52 weeks from now.
Making resolutions felt like a way to make a fresh start, but without any real direction on how to set meaningful goals, I just made really vague and immeasurable resolutions.
This year, I will drink less alcohol; I’ll eat healthier; I’ll make it to more 9AM lectures; I’ll be more mindful; I’ll walk more. These are good intentions to set if you’re looking to make a positive change in your life, but they’re restricted and bound by your interpretation.
If I made it to one more lecture than last year, then that’s a goal ticked off.
I could be flexible and say that I’ve completed any of those goals, because there was no way of confirming it come the end of the year. So, instead of setting vague resolutions, create measurable ones.
If you’re a big drinker and you’re looking to cut down, swap out ‘Drink less alcohol’ with ‘Do not drink alcohol on weeknights for the next four weeks.’ Set a specific target and then track it in either a calendared format, or on an app designed to track habits.
Maybe you want to improve your mindfulness; create a tracker for meditation and tell yourself you will meditate once a week
for the next two weeks.
Put a number on your goals, make it temporal, and track it.
I’ve found this to be the best way to actually see if I’ve met a goal or target, and if my goal has a
deadline of a few weeks from now, it’s still fresh in my mind, and I can complete it early.
So, you’ve managed to go a month making small changes to one area of your life. Resolution done? Not quite.
Resolutions Are for Continuous Growth, Not Just for January
New Year’s Resolutions are effectively goals; they’re tasks that you want to complete; targets to meet.
Instead of setting goals at the start of one month, try setting goals for every month. Let’s say you’ve set a resolution to ‘Journal at the start and end of every week in January’, and you’ve done that successfully.
It’s been positive for you, and you’ve met your resolution. If it’s been beneficial to you, then adapt the goal.
Let your resolutions evolve as you evolve. Sit down at the start of February and write down a new goal: Journal three times a week in February.
Meet that and repeat in March: Journal every day in March. As young people, you are forever changing and growing. I started the year with intentions to progress in my career, and only three months later, I changed my mind completely.
Allow yourself to change and grow and allow your goals to change and grow with you. If you’ve set a goal to go the gym three times a week, but actually you’ve found that it’s not benefiting you, or you’d rather go running, or you’ve not been feeling well – be kind to yourself and allow that goal to evolve into one that is more reflective of who you are now.
Don’t be governed by a few goals you made at the start of January. You’re in control – you dictate the goals.
Lay the Foundations for Your Future
So, you’re a few months into the year, and you’re setting monthly goals, springboarding off the resolutions you made in January, adapting them, and changing them as you change and
grow.
Being young is scary, and not knowing what you want to do with your life is definitely something we’ve all turned a blind eye to at some point. You might not know what you want to do with your life in the world of work, or what kind of relationships you might want to be involved in.
But visualising where you want to be in the future can actually help you create meaningful goals for the present.
Remember when I said that vague goals are bad? They’re actually good if you’re thinking long-term. Write down three long-term goals for what you want your life to look like when you’re older.
Maybe it’s as simple as ‘Be happy’, or ‘Live comfortably’, or ‘Be healthy’. These are just basic goals that you want to achieve in your life.
Now write down a list of five or six medium-term goals. These are goals that are less vague and will aid you in meeting your long-term goals, things that can be done over the next ten to twenty years. What can you do in that time to ‘Live comfortably’? You might want to make a goal involving saving a desired
amount of money to buy a house. You might want to meet a certain weight goal or time/distance goal if you’re athletic. Think about things you can do to meet that long-term vision.
Now write down your short-term goals. These are the goals that you might be updating every month, the specific, time-based, measurable goals where each month, you can definitively say that you’ve completed a goal.
Think about how your short-term goals might lay the foundations for your medium and long-term goals.
You might want to set a target for one month where you will set up a help-to-buy ISA to aid your vision of buying a house and saving money.
You might want to set a realistic target for your new 5K personal best. You might want to volunteer, plan a holiday, or develop a self-care routine that will aid you in your pursuit of happiness.
Having this structure has really helped me to set smaller goals, because I know I’m working towards something, without actually having to worry too much about meeting those long-
term goals right now. And who knows? Maybe your long-term goals will change as you grow, and that’s okay because you can be flexible and create new goals.
Be Realistic
There are a couple of essential practices to be mindful of when setting resolutions and creating goals each month. The first one is to be realistic with yourself. It’s easy to go into the New Year with a big drive to restart and refresh, setting ambitious goals from the off.
This year: I’m going to run a marathon! But I can barely run 2 Miles at the moment without needing my inhaler. But I do want to get fitter. Maybe running a marathon can be a long-term
goal, and running a half-marathon can be a medium-term goal.
For the time being, I’ll set a manageable resolution that I can review each month and update when necessary. I’ll run a
5K each week for two weeks, and then I’ll increase it. But how do you know if that’s even doable?
When setting your goals, take a moment to reflect, and really think about what you're capable of at the moment – know your limits and your boundaries. You might want to travel the world, but if you have financial restraints, then you might have to be more realistic about how many places you can go. You might want to join more societies or clubs, but as an anxious introverted person, you might not want to rush yourself. Instead of overshooting for three or four things in one go, sign up for one new thing.
Know your limits and be realistic about what you can do. Start small and work yourself up to your bigger more ambitious goals. Set small attainable goals within the first couple of weeks of the year to build momentum, and to lay the foundations for something more. Build habits and build positivity as you smash through goal after goal.
Be Kind to Yourself
The most important part of goal setting is being kind to yourself. If you’ve failed to hit a target, or you’ve realised you don’t want to do one of your resolutions anymore, then be mindful of how you react. It’s obviously much better to be kinder to yourself rather than beat yourself up for not doing something.
Accept that there are reasons why that particular goal didn’t work out, and that you don’t need to do that right now. You’re young, and you’ve got loads of time. You are growing, and growth doesn’t stop when you leave university, or become an adult.
I’m in my late twenties, and I’m still growing. I know people in their thirties and forties who are still evolving, changing, and discovering new things about themselves.
Be kind to yourself, because your goals will change, and so will you. And that process is a beautiful one.
Key Take-Homes
1. Set Measurable Goals – Put a number on your target, set yourself a deadline, and review your goals regularly by tracking them.
2. Resolutions are for Continuous Growth – setting resolutions is the same as goal-setting, and goal-setting should be done all the time, not just for one month.
3. Set Short, Medium, and Long-Term Goals – Set yourself a few basic long-term goals, think about what you can do in your future to achieve these goals, and start laying the foundations now with small measurable goals.
4. Be Realistic – know your boundaries and limitations. Set goals that are realistic for you to meet in the short term.
5. Be Kind to Yourself – be patient and understanding with yourself. Don’t put yourself down for missing a goal and acknowledge that you’re still growing and changing.
So, with that in mind, grab yourself a journal and start writing down some measurable goals.
Not Sure Where to Start?
Maybe try a few of these out to get yourself up and running:
Achieve an average of 3 hours of mobile phone screentime per day each week.
Declutter your room each week and donate any unwanted items to charity every six weeks.
Do not drink alcohol during weekdays for the next month.
Eat vegetarian three times a week for the next month.
Go for one big walk in nature once a fortnight.
Do a 5K run once a week for the next month.
Journal for two days a week for the next month.
Set up a savings account in the next month.
Take a social media detox day each fortnight for a month.
Write down a list of places you want to visit and prioritise each one in order of possibility and convenience.
HAPHE is a non-profit charity committed to trauma-induced depression prevention. You can learn more about our cause here. Want to get involved? Why not take part in our Short Film Project or Tell Your Story?
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