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The Case for Monthly Resolutions



How are your new year’s resolutions going? If you’ve already fallen off the band wagon let me make an argument for monthly resolutions. New Year’s resolutions can be well-meaning but also overwhelming. The start of the new year comes and you set the intention to improve so many aspects of your life. You start in on the journey and soon you can’t keep track of everything you need to do. One solutions is set new years resolutions like this. Or you can work through your resolutions monthly.


Working through your resolutions just means taking your list of resolutions and prioritizing them. Let’s say at the beginning of the year you said you wanted to get organized, loose weight, pay off your credit card, cook more and eat out less, read more, take a class, and maybe more! Then in January you dive into this list and do a little bit of everything all the time, if that was successful for you then that’s amazing! You nailed it, keep going throughout the year. If you didn’t keep up with everything you wanted to work on, then let me suggest breaking this down into chunks—twelve chunks for twelve months if you will!



P R I O R I T I Z E Y O U R G O A L S

Take your list of New Year’s resolutions and put them in order from most important to least important. Look through your list and think about them—if you only achieved one of these goals, which one would it be? Once you decide which goal is the most important, that goal should be first. See the prioritized list of goals previously mentioned, below for example:


1. Loose weight

2. Pay off your credit card

3. Cook more and eat out less

4. Get organized

5. Read more

6. Take a class


This prioritized list should then be spread over the next few months. So for this month or if you want to start in March you would focus on your first, most important goal. For the entire month, that is the only goal you need to focus on. Think through that goal and break it down into achievable bits. If you want to loose thirty pounds this year, how are you going to do this? Thirty pounds divided over six months is five pounds a month. You can do that and maybe more! But let’s stick to an achievable five pounds for the sake of this example.



F O C U S O N O N E G O A L A T A T I M E

How are you going to lose those five pounds? Workout three times a week? Have desserts only on Saturdays? Make a plan on how you are going to achieve this goal and stick to it for one month. One month to set the habit and make the commitment. For this one month, this goal is your focus and you don’t have to stress out about the other goals. Don’t worry about taking a class this month, stay committed to your monthly goal!


Then when the next month comes around, you’ve set the habit and made progress on your first goal—keep it up! Keep up that same commitment but now it’s time to strategize how you can work in your next goal. If your next goal is paying off your credit card look at how much you owe and how much you can afford to put towards your debt on a weekly or monthly basis. Set up an automatic payment to your credit card or set a reminder on your phone. Keep up the habit of the first goal while adding on tasks to accomplish the second goal.



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Have your goals help each other! If you are trying to lose weight and save money then you don’t have to get buy that $5.00 cupcake from a cute little bakery while you’re out. Save that money and save those calories.

Breaking down your goals can help you achieve them while also making them less overwhelming. Let the first of the month be a reminder to check in with yourself and strategize on what you want to accomplish next. Because taking care of yourself is the best gift you can give yourself!


VHM

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