8 steps to discovering your New Years Resolution

Warning! It’s a process!

It should be known that I prefer to focus on an action word instead of a traditional resolution.
For the sake of length, I am skipping the backstory on why, but If your interested, you can find out here https://steemit.com/personaldevelopment/@maraki/new-year-resolution-challange

Below are my steps I use to discover my focus word for the new year. I also provided my actual personal notes for the sake of example. If you want to know what I worked on in the past, you can check out the link above!

8 Steps to Discovering your New Years Resolution / Action Word!

1. Write down a list to things to improve on.
2. Identify the root of each item.
3. Really think about what the similarities are between them all.
4. What word can you focus on that will counter the root? What is the Definition?
5. Define the Definition.
6. Define the “why”. WHY are you choosing this word?
7. What’s your Affirmation?
8. Review & Plan - START SMALL

Steps with my personal notes:

Step 1 - Write down a list to things to improve on.

Me:

1. Spend more time with my family
2. Have a social life
3. Meditate more
4. Actually meal prep and not eat out as much
5. Remodel the house
6. Have more quality time with my girlfriend
7. Get better with my finances
8. Not spend as much time sitting and getting more exercise

Step 2: - Identify the root of each item.

Me:

1. Spend more time with my family - Putting work before family
2. Have a social life - Putting work before Friends
3. Meditate more - Not giving myself enough me time
4. Actually meal prep and not eat out as much - Not giving myself time to cook
5. Remodel the house - not saving money
6. Have more quality time with my girlfriend - Working after-hours
7. Get better with my finances - I’ve focused on earning, not saving
8. Not spend as much time sitting and getting more exercise - Spending too much time at my desk

Step 3 - Really think about what the similarities are between them all.

Me:
Besides item 5 on my list, everything I want to work on is related to prioritizing. On top of that, Item 5 is related to item 7 which is me not prioritizing my finances. It seems that the root of it all is the fact that I have put work before everything else and the cause of that is everything in my life is no longer balanced.
This past year, I improved my efficiency. However, instead of spending more time with family or doing any of the things on my list (above) with all of the time I saved, I added more work to my plate. Yes, I made more money, but I also neglected so many other important moments and parts of my life. I can’t say this made me unhappy, but because I put work before everything else, my relationships with my girlfriend, my friends, and myself suffered.

Step 4 - What word can you focus on that will counter the root? What is the Definition?

Me: Balance
Balance is the condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.

Step 5 - Define the Definition.

Sure this sounds weird, but if we don’t identify what we want to focus our word on, then we create the opportunity to be too broad and miss out on our opportunity to make a successful improvement in our lives.
Me: If Balance is the condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions then I want to do this with the main categories in my life. These categories are:

1. Physical
2. Financial
3. Business
4. Lifestyle
5. Mental
6. Spiritual
7. Family
8. Relationships

There is not one thing on this list that is more important that the other. Yes, you can argue that family is more important that financial, but my reasoning is, if family is important to me, I need to be able to take care of them. I can’t do this without money. This is where balance comes into play. Currently work has come before everything, I want my bond with my family to be equal with the effort I put into work. I want my mental and spiritual health to be equal with my lifestyle.

Step 6 - Define the “why”. WHY are you choosing this word?

Me:
I am choosing balance because I realized, with my word for 2017 “efficiency” I became so efficient with everything I did, I had so much more free time.. With that free time, I added so much more work to my plate and I was drowning in work. I was neglecting major categories of my life because I overloaded myself in one of them

I want to achieve balance for the sake of my sanity, my livelihood, and my relationships. I know that if I continue down the path I am taking without making a change, it is going to be a long and miserable one. My “why” is that I don’t want to be married to my work, I want to have balance among everything and be satisfied and fulfilled in all areas of my life. Life is beautiful, why focus on only one part of it?

Step 7 - What’s your Affirmation?

What are you going to tell yourself every day, what questions are you going to ask yourself to make better decisions and reach your goal?

Me:
Affirmation - I am centered and balanced in every category of my life and make the time to fulfill every category of my life.
Question - Does this make another category in my life suffer and throw my wheel off balance.

Step 8 - Review & Plan - START SMALL

Does this all feel right? Be Realistic with yourself. Find small changes and things you can do to help establish the proper mindset to achieve your goal. START SMALL. They say Life is a journey, so think of it as a long hike you’re about to take.. and when I say long, I mean something like the Camino de Santiago, the Appalachian Trail, the PCH, etc. If you pack everything you will ever need, you will fail. You can’t possibly carry that much food and things to sustain you throughout your trip. When you do these trips successfully, you plan before hand, and mail out items along the way so when you get there, you can restock, refill, or refresh.
Apply this logic to your Focus Word. What’s your plan, where will you add more to your kit? When will you give yourself inspiration when you might need it?

Me: This is difficult because how does one plan for this? I can create a schedule of time, I can create what every day will look like but this needs to be ever-changing and have the ability to flow with what comes about next. I am an artist who generally doesn’t do well with consistency so this will be tough.
My Action Plan:

1. Use Darren Hardy’s life wheel to evaluate my current standings.
2. Establish an ideal future routine
3. Create a ramp up to that routine. Start small and make minor changes as I go.
4. Review at the end of every 2 weeks to see how I did and make necessary adjustments
5. Every 2 months, Re-evaluate my life wheel to see if there is something I need to focus on more.
6. Create a feed or subscribe to a mail list from individuals or organizations who support a balanced lifestyle. This will help with motivation, ideas, tips & tricks etc.
7. Read a minimum of 1 book every 2 months related to having a balanced lifestyle.

Tips:

1. Be honest with yourself
2. Don’t be afraid or embarrassed of what you write.
3. Love the process and be patient. I find that if I break my reviews up to 2 week periods (I learned this last year while studying topics related to 2017’s word “Efficiency”) I was able to set realistic goals and track my progress in a much more effective manner.
4. Focus on not what you do wrong, but what you do right.
5. Keep a positive mindset
6. Immerse yourself in learning about ways to improve whatever it is you want to improve upon