Planning for a seriously happy New Year

It’s that time when everyone is reflecting on the past year and making plans for the next one. For me it was a great one with many changes – and the coming year will be even better!

Planning seems so easy – I’ll get in shape, read more books, find a better job, be more outgoing, open my own business… but we all know that in February most of us don’t remember any of the plans we made with a glass of champagne a month before.  So this year I’ve decided to plan my goals really carefully and seriously. And I’ve found an excellent tool to help me to stick to my plan, 43Things.

This online tool is great for me for various reasons:

• It provides a private space to enter my goals.
• Every few days (for a short term goal), or weeks (for a long term goal), I log on to the website and write notes about how it is going, if I stick to the plan, make progress and so on.
• The website e-mails me every week or every few days to remind me of my goals.

I decided to make my goals really specific this year. What? – I will lose 6 kilograms. When? – within 2 months. How? – sweets and alcohol only once a week, less fat food (no sausage, no bacon), more vegetables, more exercise.  They say my goals should be measurable (so I got a set of scales), but also realistic (0.5 kg a week is achievable and acceptable to health standards).  Updating my journal on the site is a useful way of tracking my progress and feelings along the way.

A “vision board”, and hanging my goals in front of my nose somewhere are good ideas as well. For visual and aesthetic reasons (a hand written plan on a piece of paper doesn’t go very well with other photos on my walls), I put them inside my wardrobe.  I look there a few times a day so I just can’t miss it, it will always remind me about my goals and help me to keep on track.