Unlocking the Secrets to Resolutions That Actually Work

I love the idea of starting fresh. It gives us a chance to start with some new thoughts, some new ideas; to take a timeout and imagine the life you actually want.

Today, I’m going to share some tried and true tools that will help you achieve those new goals and New Year’s Resolutions.

First, I want us to get in the right frame of mind. I’m a Bible believing Christian and I believe that God truly wants the best for us. He wants us to use our gifts and talents. He wants us to work hard and do our best. We are his children. I believe this with all my heart. So the first thing I want to suggest, is to take your desires before him in prayer. I do this on a daily basis. I spend time in his word and in prayer. Not because I am such a great perfect person—it’s the opposite. Because I know I am a flawed person, saved by grace. And that if I am going to accomplish these dreams, I have in my heart that I believe he has given me, I need to be in a personal relationship. I need to yield to him, surrender and trust. That may not have been what you were expecting. That’s ok. My biggest source of inspiration for me is my relationship with my creator. I go to him daily and thank him for all he has blessed me with. I’m married to the man he had for me, he blessed me with my three children, and so many sweet, amazing friends, a home and so many incredible life adventures. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had many heartaches too! Many setbacks and many disappointments.

Prayer and Reflection

So, the very first thing I want you to do as we are setting out to create our New Year’s resolutions—or as some people like to call them, our New Year’s goals. I want you to spend some time in prayer asking God to give you direction. Thank the Lord for all the things you accomplished this past year. Ask him to show you what dreams he has for you for this coming year—things you want to do; things which you want to improve.

Success List

Now, get out a piece of paper and write out what went well last year and where you surprised yourself with what you accomplished. I call this your success list of the year. Go crazy here. Write the little things and the big things. Where you feel really good about your results. This should be a fun time of reflection. Don’t worry, this is just for you. It’s time to evaluate this past year.

Here’s a little example of my list to get you thinking about yours.

I first wrote about the amazing year of travel I had with my husband. I wrote what an incredible time we had in Montana (we had never been there before). A best friend of mine’s daughter got married there. Absolutely stunning and gorgeous!

Next, how good I feel about deepening my relationship with two of my adult children. My son got engaged to the love of his life this year. I’m so proud of him!

My podcast hit an all new high in levels of downloads.

I moved platforms for my podcast, got a laptop and figured that all out! This took a lot of hard work and patience. I am not that tech savvy but I’m getting better. I even put in new and better intro music!

My tennis game hit a new level. I learned top spin and played incredible tennis with my new tennis partner Marla.

I kept my word to myself and worked out twice a week lifting weights, for the entire year.

Another success was meeting with a functional doctor and getting hormone treatment.

I did two amazing Bible studies, one in a private home and the other one I started this fall studying Revelation for Bible Study Fellowship.

Another success was, on the days I wasn’t playing tennis, adding walking to my workout routine.

A goal I had was to be interviewed on another podcast. I accomplished that and was interviewed on a Southwestern podcast called Pony Tales (which I was terrified of doing and it was amazing). It will be published here after the 1st of the year.

I created an even better workspace to write, record and promote my podcast on a weekly basis. This one small part of my son’s old bedroom is looking so professional.

Another achievement was having my podcast episodes transformed into blog posts on my friend Marita’s blog: “Living Your Best Life.” The exciting part is that several of these posts have attracted over 1,100 readers!

I’m so proud of some of the podcast series I created last year: the series on marriage, the series on creating our own personal blueprint mission statement, and the series on creating breakthroughs. These is some of my best work yet! If you haven’t heard/read them, you can always go back.

Your list will look completely different from mine. Please reflect over your year and create your own list of successes, both big and small. This step of writing down your accomplishments is a confidence builder. It puts on paper the things you’re most proud of. We can get so caught up in the things that didn’t go well. Our setbacks, our failures and focus on those things. I think if we let ourselves, we can binge on the things that didn’t go well and get stuck. This thinking  is so counterproductive. I do think that has a place; to be evaluated. But not today. We are getting ourselves prepared for an even bigger and better year. It all starts with our mindsets.

Categorize Goals

The next step is going to be looking at 2025, let’s put some structure to our thinking. To simplify this process, I think it’s helpful to categorize the most important different areas of our lives.

These are my top 5:

• Spiritual
• Family and relationships
• Career or volunteer work
• Health
• Personal development and organization

You can personalize your top five general areas that fit your life!

Write these down on 5 different sheets of paper and brainstorm ideas of what you would like to improve in each of these areas.

You’re putting your brain to work for you. Leave about a paragraph size space below each of these things you write down. Be creative, make this fun. You’re just using your imagination.

Now below each of these ideas I want you to write how you would feel if you accomplished this thing. Be really truthful to yourself. This is one of the most important parts of the whole process. This creates your why. Let me tell you if it’s not a big enough “why” you’ll probably not stick with this past January. Picture how you would feel if this improvement became a reality. Describe what you are thinking and feeling.

Identify One Key Goal

The next part is we are going to simplify.  I want you to pick only one category. I want you to transfer this to a separate piece of paper. The category that you really think is important for 2025. Then write a realistic goal that is attainable. Now, I want you to write out how you would feel if you accomplished this goal. How could your life be better. What satisfaction would you feel? Why do you really want to accomplish this one thing? Now find the strategy that will work the best for you. You know yourself. Start with the end in mind and work backwards. Write down everything you can think of to accomplish this goal. Be resourceful. Brainstorm.

First Action Step

Now pick one thing you can do. Just one thing. Don’t make this bigger than it needs to be. The next step is write down when you are going to take your first action. Write down a starting date. Now, be good for your word to yourself. Start the one thing. All of the other things you wrote down, keep that for later. As you gain momentum on this one goal, you can maybe add a second category. This may sound really elementary, but the problem most people make in writing out New Year’s Resolutions or New Year’s goals is they write down way too many things and create impossible goals only to set themselves up for failure. This does not work. I’ve been guilty of this myself. Give yourself the opportunity to be successful.

You know have your number 1 goal. You know why you want to accomplish it. You written down several ideas to try as you work toward accomplishing this goal. Writing all this down is necessary. You are your best coach. No one knows you or what you really want as much as you do. And then start. Nothing will change without taking action. Acknowledge the small successes along the way. When you feel like quitting, revisit your why.

Here’s a quick summary of the action steps:

                1.           Prayer and Reflection: Begin with gratitude and seek guidance from Jesus Christ as we create our future goals.

                2.           Success List: Write down achievements from the past year to boost confidence.

                3.           Categorize Goals: Use categories like Spiritual, Family, Career, Health, and Personal Development to organize thoughts.

                4.           Identify One Key Goal: Focus on one realistic, meaningful goal, identifying your why and create a clear strategy and timeline.

                5.           First Action Step: Plan a specific action to initiate progress on the chosen goal.

To let you in on a little secret I’m playing with two ideas for this year for my podcast. One is the podcast theme of this coming year is “Up-leveling Your Life” and the other is changing the title of my podcast to “Discover Her Newest Purpose Podcast.” You’ll have to let me know what you think?

I’ll be working on my 2025 goals right alongside you!

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Monette hosts a weekly podcast: Mornings with Monette. She has been a lifelong learner and and appreciates the opportunity to share what she has learned–both through her podcast and here at The Best-Life Project (based on the content of her weekly podcast). Her messages are raw, honest and straight from the heart. She lives in Albuquerque, NM with her husband Leland. They have three adult children and are enjoying living their best lives filled with travel and adventure.