How to set up your 2024 goals

🔋 Mood: Tired.

☕ Drinking: Berries tea

🎶 Listening: I ain’t worried, OneRepublic

When we hear about the new year, one of the first things that comes to our minds is the New Year’s resolutions.

We set those goals every January, and we usually forget every February.

To break this circle, and as part of the end-of-year challenge, today I want to give you the keys to start fulfilling all these resolutions we set for ourselves year after year.

1 – Brainstorming what you want to achieve

Brainstorming is a technique that consists of writing down on paper (or digitally) everything we have in our heads about a specific topic.

In this case, I suggest you write down everything you want to achieve next year, no matter how crazy or meaningless you think it may be; any goal (small or big) must be there.

2 – Vision Board

Although this is not mandatory, I recommend that after the brainstorming, we create a vision board on paper or on the computer (Pinterest is a tool that works very well for this) where we can contemplate the goals we have set for ourselves at a glance.

We will paste all the images that make us think about the objectives written before on paper. We can do the same in digital. You can create a board called “2024 Vision” on Pinterest where you can add all the pins that remind you of your goals or do it in a folder on your computer.

If, for example, we have written down “do more exercise”, we can include images of famous athletes or photos of a fancy gym.

3 – SMART goals

Now, we need to turn those desires into tangible goals.

To do this, we will use the SMART technique, which consists of each objective must meet the following characteristics:

• Specific. Tell us exactly what we want to achieve. Doing more exercise is nonspecific because we don’t know what “more exercise” means. On the other hand, going to the gym three times a week tells us precisely what we want to achieve.

• Measurable.

• Achievable. If you are a person whose only physical exercise consists of running after the bus, it makes no sense to set the goal of going to the gym every day because you might not achieve it after the first week. Our objectives must be consistent and sincere with ourselves.

• Relevant. Is this goal really important to you? Maybe you think that quitting smoking is important for you, but you don’t want to quit smoking, and you do it because your mother-partner-friend asks you to. If the reasons why you do something are not powerful, you will not be able to achieve that goal.

• Timely. Limited to a specific time. You must set a time limit to achieve each objective.

So, for example, if one of our wishes is to do more exercise, we can write it down as follows:

“I want to walk 5,000 steps every day before March 1st.”

4 – Objectives by category

Another way to define our objectives is by thinking about the different areas of our life.

There are eight different areas in our lives:

• Professional

• Family and friends

• Relationship

• Personal development

• Emotions

• Spirituality

• Health

• Leisure time

The end of the year is an excellent time to review these areas and see what we want to improve, always following the SMART technique.

For example, instead of saying, “Call my mother more”, we could say: “call my mother every Sunday at noon.”

5 – Timely goals

To achieve our goals, we must do it little by little. To do this, choose a different theme every month or every quarter to incorporate into your life.

For example, January can be the month in which we start to eat healthier; once we have achieved it, in February, we can stop smoking; once we have achieved it, in March, we can start exercising…

Another option is to choose two or three habits per quarter.

For example, the first quarter can be the quarter of health, and here, we will incorporate the habit of eating healthier and exercising. The second quarter can be work-related; the third is about improving our relationships…

6 – The word of the year

Although setting several goals can be an excellent idea, we must choose one main goal to achieve this year. This objective will define the path we must follow and what we must think about before making decisions.

It can be a title (2024, the year I learned to rest) or a word (my word for 2023 was “adulting”).

7 – Schedule your goals and keep them in sight.

We must write down these objectives and purposes on a calendar or agenda that we look at every day or hang in our office; if we have them in sight, it is easy to remember them.

We can also create a reminder on our phone.

I hope these tips help you and that this is the year in which you fulfil all your New Year’s resolutions.

P.S. Next week I’ll show you my 2023 review.

If you want to see the past issues of this challenge, you can do it here.