HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year! Welcome to the time of year when 46.5% of North Americans set goals. It’s a good time to reset. Did you know you are twice as likely to achieve your goals if you write them down? And you are 76.4% more likely to achieve your goals if you tell a friend or mentor what you hope to accomplish. And did you know that those who:

1. write their goals down,
2. share their goals with others,
3. list actionable steps with specific dates to work toward their goals, and
4. have people who will encourage them and hold them accountable, are 96.3% more likely to reach their goals?

Well, I made up those statistics, but they sound believable, don’t they? We’ve all heard similar stats about goal setting. Although I made up the numbers, I’m sure you will agree with me that if we do A, B, C, and D, we are more apt to achieve great things. Great accomplishments don’t happen by accident. Have you ever heard someone say something like, “I was just scrolling on Instagram and suddenly I had a YouTube channel with a million followers.”? Or, “Yesterday, I opened a blank Word document and bam! Today my book is finished.”? Or, “I started eating fries and a Big Mac before bed and quit going to the gym and poof! I lost fifty pounds.”?

Now about setting those goals, some experts say they need to be BIG goals, or they won’t motivate you to reach them. Others say, set small attainable goals because when you reach a goal, it will give you a hit of dopamine, encouraging you to set new goals. Whatever your approach, write them down and put your actions in your planner. Daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews will also increase your odds of success. Also, focus on your why, as I mentioned in Starters Day. Having a strong reason for reaching a goal may quite possibly be the number one indicator of success.

If you have read some of my blogs this year like, One Word, Eternal Hope, or The Fourth Quarter, you know that my word for the year was focus. I focused on completing my book by the end of 2024. In the fourth quarter, my editor and I made some serious progress, and I sent it back to her on December 23^rd for what I hope to be a final review. The cover is a work in progress. The book is close, but I did not reach my goal of having it in my hands by today. Disappointingly Finding Joy in the West won’t be finished until 2025. But where would it be if I had not focused this year on that one thing? Since I have never written before, I grossly underestimated the time and effort involved in writing a book. But I never quit.

My focus word for the new year is finish. In 2025, I plan to continue to focus on finishing Finding Joy in the West. Then, to increase the odds of me selling more than twelve books, I will host a book signing event or two. If I sell more than a dozen, I will celebrate for a minute and get to work on Finding Joy in the East.

So, how did you do with your goals in 2024? Did you lose that weight? Declutter the garage? Run that Marathon? Read through the Bible? I hope you did. And I hope you will share your accomplishments with me.

Now, what is your focus word for the new year? What are your goals for 2025? If you are a goal-setter, let me encourage you to do A, B, C, and D. And if you need someone to encourage you, count me in. I will be happy to send you an email every quarter to check in on your progress. I’d love to hear from you.

Please share your achievements and goals in the comments section below. As Jon Acuff says, let’s make 2025 our greatest year ever. Happy New Year!

*Image by Wilifried Pohnke from Pixabay