Looking ahead to the new year, you may be wondering how to choose resolutions that will help you start 2022 off on the right foot. It’s important to find the right balance between setting lofty goals that will overwhelm you, and attainable goals that you can feel good about achieving. Here are four good goals to set for yourself to make 2022 your best year yet.
Since the dawn of time, humans have been asking the Big Question that underscores everything we do in life: what’s our purpose here on Earth? The pandemic has caused many people to become even more introspective about their life purpose, what’s truly important to them and what they’ve been put here on Earth to do.
If this sounds familiar, know that you’re not alone. You may be wondering how you can make an impact on the world around you in 2022, and what New Year’s resolutions you should be setting to get there.
What are Good Goals Examples to Set for 2022?
To get the ball rolling, here are some examples for meaningful goals you can set in the new year to make the most of your life and inspire others to do the same:
1. Start a Gratitude Practice
If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past couple years, it’s the importance of cultivating gratitude for our health, personal relationships and all the blessings in our lives. Contemplating things to be grateful for will help you gain a fresh perspective on your life, welcome more good into your experience and inspire others to adopt a more positive attitude in the process.
2. Strengthen Your Growth Mindset
Adopting a growth mindset can mean the difference between reaching your goals and settling for less than you deserve. Luckily, there are practices you can engage in to strengthen your growth mindset and in the process, adopt a perspective that’s more conducive to improvement and achieving your goals.
3. Learn Healthy Ways to Cope With Stress
Mental health issues like stress, anxiety and depression have become rampant in our society in recent years. Even if you don’t struggle with any of these issues, it’s important for your overall emotional wellness to learn healthy ways to cope with stress so you can focus on creating more positivity in your life. Some of these healthy coping mechanisms include journaling, meditation and yoga, but there are endless activities for you to try out.
4. Get Involved With a Cause That Matters to You
Studies have shown that paying it forward to make someone’s day brighter can boost your overall health and happiness significantly, and many spiritual and religious traditions have suggested that giving to others may even be the key to enlightenment. In 2022, try setting a goal to give back monthly, weekly, or even daily to make someone’s life experience better. Not only will this set in motion a positive ripple effect in the world, but it will also likely boost your mood and change your perspective for the better.
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How to Achieve Your Goals
So, now that you’ve set good goals for the new year that are at once meaningful, challenging and achievable, how can you go about actually achieving them? Here are a few tips for setting New Year’s resolutions that will help you hit the ground running:
1. Focus On the End Goal
The new year is a great time to sit down and journal about where you want to end up in the future. Take some time to write down your goals for the year ahead, as well as longer term goals like where you’d like to end up within the next five or 10 years.
By imagining your ideal life, you’ll be able to work backwards from that vision and make decisions based on whether or not they will get you closer to that end result. Having a clear vision in mind of who it is you want to become in the future will also help to keep you motivated and willing to keep working towards this version of yourself consistently.
2. Keep Your Values Top of Mind
Before you visualize your ideal future, take some time to journal about what’s most important to you in life. Everyone has a set of core values that act as a guiding force in their life, whether it’s health, love, family, or money.
Think about the five or six values that are most important to you in life and set goals that will help you cultivate more of them over the next year. Check out sample lists of core values online to get inspiration.
3. Be as Specific as Possible When Setting Good Goals
When breaking down your goals into bite-sized goals that will act as stepping stones along the way, challenge yourself to be crystal clear and specific about what it is you’d like to achieve. For example, instead of setting a vague goal to improve at work, try being specific by writing down a tangible goal to be promoted to a senior level, and then work backwards from that goal by setting mini goals throughout like “present my ideas to the senior leadership team.”
The more specific you are about your goals, the more motivated you’ll be to strive to reach them. If you set tangible goals from the beginning, it will feel even more rewarding when you reach them. To ensure success, try using SMART Goals to create your New Year’s resolutions.
4. Remember Your Why
One of the most important components of smashing good goals for the new year is underscoring it all with an understanding of why you want to achieve these goals in particular. A strong “why” foundation will set you up to stay motivated even when you feel like giving up, so it’s important to identify this from the beginning.
For example, if your goal is to eat healthy and incorporate more vegetables into your diet throughout the day so you can improve your health, remembering the “why” behind this goal will help you stay committed despite sugar cravings. Alongside each goal, write down a mission statement of sorts detailing why you want to achieve this and how it will help improve your life or the lives of others.
