How to Make 2024 Your Year

Now that we’re in the second week of January, it’s very possible that many of you have already come up with your resolutions for 2024. But it’s equally as likely that some of you have not yet begun to think about what you see or plan for yourselves in the year ahead. Either way I hope that the below offers some guidance on how you can create goals that will stick.

Draft From the Heart and Soul

So often we make our resolutions what we feel a sense of obligation to fulfill or accomplish. We know that health is important so we feel obligated to make going to the gym one of our goals. The new year offers us the chance for a fresh start. So we go to the gym for a few days or weeks, but because we haven’t tied our goal to a deeper personal meaning, we won’t have the same lasting follow through we’d have if we drafted from the heart and soul.

I typically figure out my resolutions or goals by making a list of my core values and thinking of how I can infuse them into my life. But this year I had an idea for a slightly different approach.

1. Make a Bucket List

• What better way to figure out what we want for our lives than to dream as big as possible? Where do we want to go? What do we want to accomplish? Who do we want to become? Not only do these questions and resulting bucket list items serve as a compass, they also push us to imagine the best possible lives for ourselves. If we dream small, we live small.

2. Find the Common Themes in Your Bucket List

• What are the main themes or categories that make up your list? Are most of yours about travel? Career? Health and wellness? Personal development? Look for the commonalities amongst the items on your list.

3. Determine What Steps Can Be Taken This Year

• What can you do this year that will keep you on target towards checking off the items on your bucket list? If you want to buy a house, create and stick to a budget that will allow you to save some extra cash this year. If you want to run a marathon, start by going for a run a few times a week. If you want to be an executive in your field, plan to meet with ten executives this year to learn more about their roles.

These three steps will result in a list of actionable resolutions that will get you closer to your bucket list dreams. Because your resolutions will be tied to dreams, places, and ideas that you’re excited about, you will consistently be reminded of what you are working towards and you will be more likely to follow through.

Extra Tips:

• Don’t overload yourself. You will feel better at the end of the year if you’ve completely followed through on a few resolutions than if you half-assed a whole bunch.

• Come up with a list of daily tasks that will keep you on track.

  • Ex: One of my resolutions this year is to read 100 books. That means reading two books a week. If the average book is about 350 pages, then I should be reading about 100 pages a day to stay on track. I also want to learn more about travel, so a goal of mine is to watch 30 minutes of travel videos a day. Knowing what you can do each day to hit the target for your weekly, monthly, or annual goals is the best way to stay on top of them.

• Make sure that your bucket list feels true to you, rather than just adding things because they’re typical bucket list items.

✪ Action item: Make a bucket list that encapsulates your dream life. Find the common themes in your list and draft your resolutions for the year around those themes.