Blue Monday is right around the corner. If you don't know what that is, consider yourself lucky. Blue Monday AKA "The Saddest Day of the Year" usually falls on the third Monday of every January. Despite not actually being backed by any scientific data, a PR firm representing a travel company back in 2005, developed a "formula" that allegedly proves that this day is the absolute saddest due to the weather, the time it takes for the typical New Year's resolution to fail and a bunch of other untrackable arbitrary garbage. Their aim was to convince consumers that they were so sad that they needed to book a holiday to feel happy again. It's complete bullshit, but marketers use it anyway to convince us that we're failures and the only way to feel better about ourselves is to buy things.
So this year, skip Blue Monday and everything that goes along with "should-ing" all over yourself. Instead, here are some tips for making your goals more achievable.
Check in on your goals once a month with a "Personal Inventory Day"
Choose one day a month that you block off REAL time on your calendar to do personal inventory. It can be whenever you want, I choose the 5th, because my birthday is 5 September, and I also like that it’s the beginning of the month. I got this advice from a Call Your Girlfriend episode about levelling up last year, and it's a total game-changer.
Map out your goals
Take some time to not only write out your goals, but write out why you want to achieve them. Upon deeper reflection, you might find that some of your goals aren't really as important to you as you had originally thought, or maybe they're actually important to someone else and you’ve just adopted the stress of them.
This initial step will probably take the longest, but it's definitely worth it. When you come back each month, it will likely take much less time and you may find that even some of these goals aren't really that important and you can scratch them.
I put my personal inventory in a Google doc and keep a bitly link along with other small details related to my goals in Notes in my phone. This helps to keep my goals accessible without overwhelming me.
Some items you might want to track:
-Savings Goals — this might be a good day to check your credit report.
-Fitness Goals
-Investment Goals
-Charitable Goals
-What you might have learned in the past month.
This can also be a good time to think about your health and self-care needs. Is it time for a teeth cleaning or pap-smear? This is the perfect day to schedule those and to ensure you're not falling behind on taking care of your most important asset: YOU!
Make Gratitude Part of your Growth Strategy
Some people recommend keeping a journal of one thing you’re grateful for each day. But if you don't have time for that, it's definitely worth including in your personal inventory. This exercise is what keeps me coming back month after month. While I believe that finding gratitude each and every day is the truest way to find joy, I find that taking the time, even just once a month to write about what I'm thankful for is what I look forward to the most every time I do my personal inventory.
Here are some gratitude questions you might want to explore:
-What am I grateful for?
-Who am I grateful for?
-Who should I write gratitude notes to?
When you think about gratitude, it’s good to be specific here, too. Instead of broadly saying, “I’m grateful for my family.” Think of specific actions that you appreciate. For instance, “I’m grateful that my sister watched the kids for me so I could have some ‘me’ time”.
Finally, I think at some point in this process it's good to list all of your successes over the last year or so. You will undoubtedly surprise yourself on how much you’ve already achieved. Once you start coming back to your personal inventory month after month and continue to track your progress, this will start to feel like a reverse to-do list. All checked off. Don't beat yourself up if you haven't made progress on every single goal. Just remember, you don't have to do everything today, this week, or this month. You just have to do something.
Comments