A few years ago, I was kinda in a funk. Okay, not kinda… I was definitely in a funk. And I only realized this when I went home for the holidays. I was talking to people I pretty much only talk to over the holidays, and I literally could not think of one interesting thing that I’d done since my last annual update. It’s not that I hadn’t done anything that year… it’s just that nothing stood out or seemed exciting. So during the week between Christmas and the end of the year, I did some thinking… and I realized that I was floating through life, just going through the motions without actually grabbing the reins. And I decided that seemed like a pretty stupid way to live.

Now I don’t like using the phrase  “New Year’s Resolutions” because quite honestly resolutions are a lot of pressure. (I hate making promises that I’m not sure I will be able to keep.) For example, I’m pretty positive that I am not going to be able to keep resolutions to go to the gym three days a week, to eat healthier, and to go to bed / wake up earlier for more than a few idyllic weeks. Things would be going great for a week to two (possibly three!) but then inevitably something would come up at work and I’d have to stay late. So I’d order in something delicious but definitely-not-good-for-me dinner to enjoy at my desk. Then I’d head home late and get to bed late even later. Which means getting up late, and then it’s check ya later AM gym time, bring it on massive lunchtime burrito, then oh-crap-I-forgot-to-do-this-thing-for-my-boss-so-I’m-stuck-working-late-again and after a few days of this – ta-da! – the derailment is complete. All resolutions have been burnt to a crisp.

So, back to my point, instead of “resolutions” – and– I prefer to make goals for the upcoming year. Yes, I know it’s really just semantics, but goals just seem much more motivating than resolutions do. They’re don’t micro-manage the way I go about my day-to-day because they’re bigger than that. Goals are something to work toward and strive for, with the understanding that a little derailment here or there is okay! Which means I don’t have to berate myself as an utter failure at life because I simply cannot haul my fanny out of bed to gym it up before work. With goals you get a chance to evaluate how things are going, course-correct when and where needed, and otherwise generally keep chugging away!

My guidelines for setting these goals are pretty straightforward:

  • They have to be BIG. Not unattainable, totally-never-achievable big (e.g., walking on Mars, marrying Ryan Gosling, figuring out how to apply eyeliner). But big enough that it need to be broken down into smaller sub-goals to get there. I love checking off boxes as much as the next completely-type-A-list-making girl, but there’s something seriously satisfying about incrementally chipping away at something and finally being able to say you did it. (And yes, sometimes I like to think of it as creating more, littler boxes to check off, yaaaay!)
  • They have to be TOUGH. Not disillusioningly impossible, but something that I have to actually push myself to achieve. I know I will trip up along the way, but that’s okay: I have time – a whole year! – to get back in the saddle and still achieve my goal.
  • They have to be MEASURABLE. At the end of the year, I need to be able to definitively satisfy my irrepressible urge to Check The Box. If I don’t know how I’m going to do that, if I don’t know – pardon me for dropping into Consultant Speak for a moment – what the “success criteria” are for my goal, then it needs to be tweaked a bit until that’s clear.
  • They have to be FUN. Not like a crazy dance party at a bar with all of my best friends to the most amazing jukebox ever fun – though if I can sneak that in there somehow, you’d better believe that I most DEFINTELY will – but what I think it is important that each goal excites me and keeps me motivated to work toward them.

That first year, I had one main BTMF Goal: to try something new that I’d never done each month. And that next December when I looked back at what I had done that year, it was really amazing to see how much I’d branched out, explored, and really “lived life”! I know that sounds horribly cheesy but it’s true:  I ran my first half marathon. I tried cross-country skiing for the first time. I went to the Tribeca Film Festival. I traveled to China and saw my first “Man-made Wonder of the World”! It was a year to remember… and that’s how I want ALL of my years to be!!