Did you know that only around 8% of people actually achieve their resolutions each year?
Also, another interesting statistic is that only 75% of those who set resolutions follow through with them after just the first week. Yes, that means that 25% give up THAT soon!
As you can see, the majority of people don’t make it far with their yearly goals.
However, that doesn’t mean you have to be included in that statistic.
Before you completely throw out the idea of New Year’s resolutions and judge people who create them, please keep the below statistic from Statistic Brain in mind:
People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.
This is why setting yearly goals for yourself is so important. You are much more likely to stay motivated and reach your goals when you actually set them.
So, let’s make this a great year. Let’s work on paying off debt, saving more money, earning a higher income, living a better life, traveling more, or whatever goal you want to reach.
Below are different ways to help you reach your yearly goals so that you can make this the best year of your life. Plus, I’ve included my goals below as well.
Related posts:
- How To Get Back On Track With Your Goals
- How I Paid Off $40,000 In Student Loans In 7 Months
- My Online Income Reports
- 75 Ways To Make Extra Money
- How To Save 50% Or More Of Your Income
- Setting Goals – How To Set Personal Goals
Make sure your goal is SMART.
Have you ever heard of a SMART goal? Making sure your goal is SMART is a very important step.
What a SMART goal should be:
- Specific – What is your goal? Is it specific enough or is it too broad? What needs to be done so that you can reach your goal? Why do you want to reach your goal?
- Measurable – How can you measure your progress? How will you know if you’re on track?
- Attainable – Can your goal actually be achieved?
- Realistic/relevant – Can YOU achieve your goal? Is the goal worth it?
- Time – What’s your time frame for reaching your goal?
Write down your yearly goals.
Writing down your goal is a very important part of the process.
Doing so can help you remember it. Whenever I don’t write something down or have it in front of me on a regular basis, I usually forget about it.
If you can’t remember your goal, it would be very hard to reach it. I suggest that you think about:
- Creating a blog;
- Making a vision board;
- Putting post-its around your home that list your yearly goals;
- Placing reminders on your phone, and more.
Create a plan to reach your goal.
If you want to learn how to stay motivated with your goals, then one of the first things you should do after you create your goal is to create a plan. Without a plan, it would be difficult to reach a goal as you would just be all over the place.
You should create a plan that details the steps you need in order to reach your goal, what will happen as you reach each step, when and how you will track your progress, and more. Being detailed with your plan will help you reach your goal and become successful.
Keep track of your progress AND make changes (if needed).
To stay motivated with your yearly goals and become successful with them, you should review your progress every so often. You may want to check in daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on what type of goal you have and what personally works for you.
Keeping track of your progress is a good idea because it can tell you what you need to do in order to reach your goal, if you are behind, or if you need to make a change.
Related: I highly recommend that you check out Personal Capital (a free service) if you are interested in gaining control of your financial situation. Personal Capital is similar to Mint.com, but 100 times better as it allows you to gain control of your investment and retirement accounts.
Next Year’s Goals:
- Get at least two months ahead on Making Sense of Cents posts. I would like to be at least a few months ahead when it comes to my beefier posts here.
- Grow Making Sense of Cents. I would love to help more readers, see even more engagement, have higher traffic, and so on. I love my blog and I would love to see it grow!
- Be active every day. Whether this means just walking around the block or going for a long hike, I do want to be more active. Being in the RV full-time makes this easy because no one wants to spend ALL DAY in an RV, but there are days when I feel like I have so much to do online that I don’t move from one spot.
- Have fun living in the RV full-time! Soon, we are going to put everything in storage and we plan on living in our RV full-time for the foreseeable future. I can’t wait to see what our first full year of RVing will be like!
Here are some of my favorite photos from this year (follow me on Instagram to see more!):
What are your New Year’s resolutions and yearly goals for this year?
Leave a Reply
Love the photos Michelle!
I have big plans for 2016 and I intend to see them accomplished so I’ve been working through the book “The Power of Less” by Leo Babauta. It’s fantastic. The proof though, is in the pudding! So we’ll have to wait until late 2016 to see if it all happens to plan. 🙂
Best of luck for your goals in 2016.
Happy New Year!
Thanks Diane!
I love your goals list! Mine is very similar. My favorite advice in this post is to set up a visual goal. Without some sort of daily, visual reminder, your goals become “out of sight, out of mind.”
Thanks Kristi!
From your pictures, it looks like you had a great 2015! The biggest focus of my goals in 2016 is on savings. This is our first year post-student loans so I want to try and make a big dent in our overall savings plan. However, I do want to make sure that I take time to live and enjoy the people and world around me a bit.
Good luck on your 2016 goals and on shifting to living in the RV full-time! I’m sure the switch will be well worth it! 🙂
I hope 2016 is a great year for you!
Absolutely agree with the entire post, I set short-mid-long term goals and control and adjust them during the year:D
Thanks!
Your photos are so awesome, I’m so jealous! 🙂 And Happy New Years to you! No popping holes in the roof of your RV with champagne corks!
I’m going to call 2015 my year of fire and ice. I’ve seen some of the lowest points in my life, but I’m also seeing new opportunities that I wouldn’t have considered before. To that end, my goals for 2016 are to 1) Try and get a job, 2) Develop and grow my freelance writing business, either part-time or full-time if goal #1 doesn’t work out, and 3) Start my very own personal finance blog. Woohoo!
Haha me and my husband were just talking about how we better now break a window with a cork!
I hope 2016 is a great year for you Lindsay.
2015 was the first year I set goals for myself, and I’d say I did okay with them. (I’m still finalizing my full assessment post.) I learned a lot about how I could help ensure my success in 2016, which I applied when setting those goals. I set fewer goals this year (8 instead of 12), tried to really make sure they were very important to me personally, and will be posting more regular updates on my progress, since I really need the accountability.
Here’s to another great year for you, Michelle!
Good job!
Setting new year’s goals is a great way to get the transformation process started. Healthy new year’s resolution are:
1. Going to church and seeking GOD
2. Losing weight
3. Eating right
4. Cooking healthier food
5. Putting alcohol down (and yes, the Wine too)
6. Mending broken relationships (not all can be fixed)
7. Staying humble so you can stay blessed
Getting back on track with healthy new year’s goals is tough, but doing the transformation work is a beautiful labor of love.
What are your goals?
Thanks!
Love the photos. Cheers to a great 2016!
Thanks Adam!
Beautiful pictures!
In 2016, I want to really tackle our debt. A lot of the past year has been focused on making changes to our lifestyle to enable long-term success. Now, we can put those changes into action. The info on resolutions is interesting. I’m planning on recalculating our debts and budget. I want to make some type of chart for the fridge to track our debt payoff, we just need to identify our specific goals first (amount versus a snowball style).
Thanks! I hope you do well with your 2016 goal. You can do it!
Thanks Kalie!
Good job Steve!
We don’t have a super detailed plan when it comes to our RV plan, but we want to travel more slowly than we did the last 6 months. Thinking about staying in one area for at least a month, so hopefully we will visit around 12 areas.
Good luck with your goal! 🙂
Thank you as always, for your helpful and encouraging advice! I was wondering if you could ever considering writing a post about traveling with your pets. I’d love to travel with my dog, but he’s a bit neurotic to stay in the car in a new place (OK, I’m a little neurotic too). Do yours just lounge in the RV when you’re out on your hiking and paddling adventures?
Thanks and Happy New Year!
I will definitely have to do a post on this soon! Great idea.
Our pets come pretty much everywhere with us. We bring them on hikes, we bring them on the paddle board, and more haha 🙂
That’s awesome! Thanks for responding!
Welcome!
I’m not a huge resolutions guy. My plan is to increase my income, increase my savings rate, and monitor my expenses more closely, all while spending mindfully on lots of travel and visiting friends and family. I also want to negotiate a 6 month remote work arrangement as well – wish me luck 🙂
I hope 2016 is great for you! 🙂