The start of the new year always seems to represent new beginnings. It’s a time to remake our priorities and to reimagine our futures. Although the calendar may not recognize its significance, our humanity marks the passing of the old year with poignancy.
We awaken to the opportunities that surely await us—just over the proverbial horizon. We may suppress our yearnings, but, nonetheless, we lay our hopes on the promise that the new year will be different, more fulfilling, more exciting, more focused. We’ll achieve our goals in the new year.
Never mind the statistics about short-lived New Year’s resolve. We are beginning again. Putting the missteps and misgivings aside, we take aim. The more daring and adventuresome among us, emboldened by even greater prospects ahead, develop resolutions—or at least we aspire to do so.
So, how do you develop sound, achievable New Year’s resolutions, especially those involving your finances? And why are they so important?
Here are five tips about goals and resolutions:
- Successful resolutions should be constructed with goals. And goals should include benchmarks or steps, each leading you closer to fulfilling your resolution.
- Your brain speaks the language of resolutions. Your brain instinctively performs executive functions, which draw you closer and closer to what you resolve.
- Goals provide focus. They give you direction and vision. You have a place to go. Goals give clarity to your resolutions.
- Goals provide purpose. You know what you want, you make resolutions, and goals provide the catalyst.
- Goals make you feel good, so say neuroscientists who study the brain’s emotional circuits.
Stay tuned next week for part 2 of Setting Goals That Stick!