HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! Can you actually believe that it’s 2019?! CRAY.

Let’s chat for a hot sec about this whole “New Year’s Resolutions” thing.

They’re great, in theory.

Y’all know I’m as Type A as they come, planning + scheduling to a fault and goal setting like it’s my job. I mean, I tie Gucci bags to goals, for Pete’s sake. Girlfriend likes her Gucci, and girlfriend likes her goals. 😉 But I digress. I goal set + re-goal set perpetually, so I’m right there with ya in creating some goals slash resolutions for the new year. I’ve spent the past week deep-diving into 2018 – what worked, what didn’t, + what I want to change for le future. Maybe another post to come on more of that?

But. Resolutions.

Lovelovelove ’em or hate ’em, the time has come for everyone to make their list + check it twice.

We come up with a laundry list of things we want to do more/differently/better, and then…we fail. By mid-February, the gym memes are plastered on newsfeeds everywhere and we’re back to our old habits, saying next year will be the real year.

So. Instead of doing the same ol’ same ol’ “resolutions” this year that we likely can’t or won’t keep, I rounded up a few ideas that have helped me (that will hopefully help you, too!), in setting SMART goals (remember those???) that will be a.) achievable + b.) motivational so that you end 2019 with a buncha checkmarks + more happiness and contentment in yourself. Let’s talk 7 keepable resolutions to make you actually happier in life.

Brain dump every night. Ah, the good ol’ brain dump. We’ve talked about it oh so many times around these rosy parts, but for good reason. The brain dump WORKS, yo. Whenever I feel totally overwhelmed (which happens more often than I’d like to admit), the typical culprit is my brain. It just fills up with so much STUFF that I can’t make heads or tails of, and I’m left feeling like a machine on actual overload, about to just fizzle out altogether. When that’s the case, brain dump it out. Let yourself get all of the thoughts, fears, struggles, mental notes, reminders + random tidbits to paper, without trying to organize your way through it all just yet. Just give yourself the grace of getting it all out there, and make sense of it in a hot sec once you’ve mentally unwound a bit + are readier to attempt the next steps without that underwater feeling. Imagine the happiness you’ll feel when the unnecessary anxieties are gone – even if temporarily!
Intentionally journal + self-reflect. Once you’ve brain dumped – time to make sense of it all. I know one of my biggest shortcomings is usually failing to recognize actual accomplishments in my life. I’m SO focused on growth + development that I end up being totally fixated on checking off predetermined “successes” – and I end up failing to track the smaller successes in everyday. Things feel insignificant to me unless it was on “the list,” and that’s not necessarily (at all) healthy or helpful for general life satisfaction. Intentionally self-reflecting to close out 2018 brought all of this to my attention (although I’m pretty darn self-aware and already knew much of this about myself – ha!). Sometimes we know things about ourselves, but we don’t know it know it – in the sense that we need to see it written out on paper in front of our friggin’ faces for it to finally CLICK.
Do one thing every day that will bring you one step closer to your best self. Simple + juuuuust specific enough. When you sit down to really think about who you are (slash will be) at your “best self”…what does that look like? Who is it? What sort of things are different versus the same to who + how you are now? What would be different? And what steps do you need to take to bring you to that point? Sit down + figure out the stepping stones to take you from Point A (AKA, where you’re at right this very second), to Point B (where you are at your “best self”). Maybe your best self drinks 8 cups of water every day, and you’re lucky if you pour one in between your Diet Coke fixes, so your stepping stones are pre-filling your water bottle at the end of every night for the next day, + leaving a note note on your Diet Coke collection that simply says “H2O!” Super simple – yet impactful. And specific! Those are the keys. And when you feel those strides towards your best self every single day – enter, happiness.
Set aside a dedicated reading hour every week (or every day). I’m always the actual worst at dedicating time to a book. Which is SO sad…but true. If I’m on a plane – AMAZING. I could read the whole flight. But in everyday life, I could have the best of intentions to read ALL THE BOOKS, and it just…won’t happen. Heck, I had 20 books on my 2018 list, and I think I finished…5? SO BAD, I know. And now I’ve got a newborn at home, so there’s that. BUT. In 2018, there was a weekend that was kinda sorta revolutionary in this field. My hubs knew how badly I wanted to finish a book I had started while traveling. So one weekend, he made me stop working, stop cleaning, stop hustling – and just sit my ass down to READ. For one hour. He set a timer. He said you need to let yourself actually get into it, and forget about the rest of life for a hot sec. And ya know what??? IT WORKED. Lo and behold. I felt amazing, I finished my book, and it was the most refreshing hour that I wouldn’t have actually given myself permission to take before that moment. Some folks can just do it weekly, some folks maybe daily – but whatever the case, set aside a dedicated time to crack open a good book. (Phone in another room! 😉 ). Happiness here you come.
Stop finding time. Make time. You will never “find” time. Because time is always filled with one thing or another. RARELY do we find ourselves just sitting on a couch staring at a wall thinking, “Wow! I have so much time now to make my dream come true! I’m going to do it now!” Quite frankly, the folks making their dreams happen have no time to spare on a couch staring at a wall. 😉 Folks making their dreams happen MAKE time for their dreams TO happen. They don’t stumble upon success randomly. Even folks that seemingly got lucky (cough cough the Kardashians) have so much business savvy behind-the-scenes and work with total intention to stay where they are and then some. Look at your current list of “resolutions.” Go down it and write down all of the stepping stones that need to happen for you to get from A to B (remember point numero tres???). Now mark approximately how much TIME it’ll take to cross each stepping stone. (Because just like planning a trip – ya gotta know how much time it’ll take along the way, to actually make effective plans!) Now…where in your existent schedule can you MAKE time to cross those stepping stones? Sometimes an exchange of time is necessary, where you swap out one less-than-necessary or less-than-fulfilling tasks for something on your new-and-improved resolutions list. And THAT’S A-OK. So long as you’ve got specifically + intentionally carved out time for you + your dreams this year.
Quit the excuse. You know, the one that makes you think you can’t/won’t/shouldn’t/couldn’t do whatever the heck it is you reaaaaaally wanna do. If we’re being honest with ourselves – and I mean REALLY FREAKING HONEST – chances are, we all have some excuse that sits on the backburner, ready to ignite when it’s convenient. And y’all – this is a toughie to admit. I know, because I *struggle* with it myself. For example – my own personal most-frequented excuse is that I a.) don’t have time, and/or b.) don’t have help. I run my own multi-six-figure business by myself, that I started from the ground up by myself. So anytime something isn’t going the way I had hoped, I tend to jump right to – well, if only I had help… And ya know what? I could GET HELP! I should stop waiting for help to magically show up on my doorstep, and instead, do something about it. It really becomes a matter of: How badly do you want it? How badly do you need it? I need to hire an assistant more badly than I need to watch Jaclyn Hill’s latest makeup tutorial on YouTube. Yet instead of pursuing it in the past more seriously – I’d spend my time learning how to bake my face better. Of course, you can always justify your excuse – heck, the best excuses are the ones that blind us to the fact that they’re even an excuse! But I need some time to unwind! I need to do my makeup anyway! What’s 20 minutes going to do in the grand scheme of things anyway? Yes, we all need time to unwind. Yes, I’m doing my makeup anyways. And yes, 20 minutes might not feel like a ton of time. BUT, I can unwind other ways, I can do my makeup in half the time if I’m not distracted, and I can crank out 15 emails in 20 minutes. So…what was that excuse again? 😉
Stop apologizing. Cue Rachel Hollis’ new book. But really, stop apologizing! Stop feeling like a constant bother to everyone and their mom. Stop saying sorry for not doing anything wrong. Stop starting your follow-up email with an apology when someone should’ve replied in the first place. Stop being sorry for being you. We don’t always see/feel it in the moment, but this sh*t wears us down. We end up literally apologizing for just existing. And worse – sometimes, we believe it. We end up full of self-doubt + plagued with negative thoughts, in a constant state of paranoia or insecurity that we could’ve or should’ve apologized for something that we didn’t even know we did and then – YES THEN – all would be OK. Just…stop apologizing. (Of course, always apologize if you did something wrong – we’re just talkin’ those unneessary added apologies that we throw into conversation as fillers all too often. You know the ones. 😉 ).