With the end of March fast approaching, I thought i’d take this opportune time to remind you all of the importance for reflection. March is a great time to see how those New Year’s resolutions are going, and to decide whether pivoting or re-adjusting is necessary.


For some, the last three month 🗓️ has gone quick – myself included. For others it’s been a slow⏳journey up until this point – I am yet to meet anyone with this viewpoint but I don’t doubt they exist.


Whilst some may argue, ‘Well, I didn’t implement a strategy back in January with my New Year’s resolution.’ ‘I just set it and stuck to it,’ or haven’t. I would argue that no strategy (like the above – ‘seeing how it goes’) is still a strategy, regardless of how poor. So why not make now the time 🕰️ to see how it’s going? It’s pretty simple to do. 


Here are 3 ways to check in and reflect on your goals for 2024:


First up and the most obvious:


1. Get Writing🖋️ 

Is your goal written down anywhere?

As I type this I know it might sound silly but the amount of people – (myself included)who would say; 
‘My New Year’s resolution is to become, [fill in the blank].’


And the goal just never happens most likely because it only exists in the brain and never quite made it onto anything tangible like a piece of paper or a note in their phone 🪦.


It is instrumental that any goal, News Years Resolution (or whatever you refer to it as) is written down somewhere, and that you look at it frequently. The more you review and read the goal, the more time you will naturally remember to make for it – usually.  


2. Conduct a quarterly review 🗒️.

State – what is your goal.

List – whether you managed to stick at it.

Identify – the reasons why you could or couldn’t commit, by asking yourself, when you did complete the task what was it that made it happen. You want to identify what the motivating factors are for you to do what needed to be done; did you have a friend doing it with you?

Ps. If you didn’t complete any activities towards your goal you want to document why that is, what held you back and prevented you?

Re-adjust – once you identify what your inspiration and motivators are for maintaining and achieving those goals, you’ll need to re-adjust to incorporate them into your daily routine. 

If you couldn’t identify any motivators because you completely failed to take any actionable steps towards your goal it’s ok, what you should now have instead is a pretty detailed list of why you couldn’t commit. 

Here’s my example, I failed to go to the gym completely in Q1 – so far. 

My identified reasons for this are, a lack of routine and structure. In Q1 everything was up in the air, and I was prioritising other goals (rightly or wrongly). Me and my partner failed to set aside time to label responsibilities for us to own, like laundry. Which in turn means I just haven’t identified any free time to dedicate to the gym. 

Now the above might sound like an excuse and it is… my excuse, which has now allowed me to rectify this. We are now taking steps to ensure each of our days are more defined and we know who has the responsibility of what! 

So with the above in mind what’s your list of ‘excuses’? Don’t hold back, capturing them will allow you to come up with a way to remedy them. Ensuring you are able to dedicate time for yourself to achieve that goal.

3. Goal tracking 🛤️

List it

Do the obvious and make a list of everything you’ve done so far to get you towards your goal.

Once you’ve completed that list you might just realise you have quite a lot to be thankful for sometimes we don’t even realise or acknowledge the small steps we’ve taken towards our goal or, we see it as insignificant for example, you may have signed up for the gym but never went – instead of beating yourself up for wasting the money. Acknowledge that you took the first step by actually signing yourself up. You might have bought yourself running trainers but not yet gone for the jog, big yourself up for making the financial investment into those running shoes.

If you’re still struggling ask a close friend whether they can think of anything that you’ve done towards that goal, sometimes we are so close to it that we can’t see, but an outside perspective can.

Now that you have a list of everything you have done, now you can start making a list for everything else you want to do.
 
 Ps if you’re like me and made 0 steps towards one of your goals. The reflection towards identifying ‘why,’ is a goal, and you can start mapping out and planning what those goals and mini celebrations will look like for you.

All in all do whatever works for you to ensure you’re doing your best to stick to the aims and goals you’ve set for yourself. You did set them for a reason after all. 

However you chose to assess where you are with those goals. is your decision. No-one else’s, but if you do try any of the above do let me know how you got on, and whether you believe it will be of any benefits to you 


MOCD