Time to brainstorm! Get creative. Think big. Think small. Even think tiny.
Let your imagination roam wild and free. Discover whatever you think makes you happy and sparks joy.
Just grab a pen and paper.
What do you want to see happen in your life in 2020, just for you?
Just so you can feel happy, accomplished, or that you’re making progress toward a greater goal you’ve always wanted to achieve.
Ask your brain these questions and then let it go to work:
- What do I really want to accomplish or achieve in the coming year just for me?
- What would truly delight me?
- What have I always wanted to do but just never got around to?
- What do I wish were different or better and what can I do to make that happen?
- What are my love languages and how can I give more of what I already know makes me feel good to myself?
- What new mini habits am I willing to cultivate to draw me closer to a big goal?
At the start of this new decade, forget traditional New Year’s resolutions and try something different.
How many years have gone by where you’ve attacked your new year’s resolutions with determination and vigor in the beginning of the year? Only to lose your mojo after a few weeks or months?
The key to feeling accomplished is to load your list with mostly smaller, manageable bite sized-goals and mini-habits which, even in themselves, may be your goals. Or, those that help you advance toward your bigger goals. Win-win!
I have found it to be true that things that can be done at any time, are done at NO time. We can easily postpone these activities or projects because there’s no pressing deadline. Let’s over-ride that tendency.
This is your opportunity to plan and intentionally schedule 20 appealing activities to enjoy throughout the coming year.
Pick Activities that Are Realistic
Identify activities or projects that can be completed within an afternoon, a day, a week, a month or even the year. When you think of larger goals, what steps can you start to take now toward your ultimate goal?
One of my favorite mugs has this motto scrawled across the front: A year from now, what will you wish you had started today?
A word of caution, this is not the challenge in which to include things like scheduling a colonoscopy. Of course, if you’re due and this event should be on your list of things to do in 2020, by all means, schedule it. Get it on your calendar, but that’s not in the spirit of this particular challenge.
Think ENJOYABLE goals, both mini and BIG!
The majority of your items should be easy to complete in less than a week.
For instance:
- Planning a weekend get-away with your husband within an hour’s drive from your home
- Scheduling a lunch or dinner with a beloved family member that you don’t often have a chance to see
- Finally visiting that historical site or museum you promise yourself that one day you’ll check out
- Trying that new restaurant you’ve been hearing about
- Buying yourself something you’ve always wanted
- Visiting a local garden or arboretum to admire the spring blooms
- Attending a local concert, dance performance or play. Order those tickets now.
- Sampling new things like wearing a new color lipstick you’ve always thought of trying, trying a food or cuisine you’ve never eaten before and are curious about.
- Examining your own social media usage and determining how you want to engage with it intentionally
Plan to do 11-15 of these easier activities.
For mid-range goals or projects that take anywhere between one week and one month, give yourself some breathing room and don’t crowd your calendar with too many.
Just pick a few so burn-out doesn’t set in in and squash all the fun. This is all for your pleasure, no sense creating another hamster wheel to spin within.
You could try:
- Creating a 30-day challenge to cultivate a new mini-habit
- Planning a longer vacation with your husband
- Planning a longer vacation with your children/grandchildren/stepfamily or a group of friends
- Setting up a short-term health challenge for one month, perhaps attending weekly spin or yoga classes, limiting sugar and flour, experimenting with intermittent fasting.
- Hiring a closet company to optimally outfit your closet
- Hiring an organizing expert to tackle your basement, your garage, any space that would cleaning and organizing would boost your spirirts
For long-term activities, which last anywhere between one month and one year, choose selectively, again to prevent disillusionment or burnout.
Examples include:
- Ordering a season’s subscription to a theater or music venue.
- Practicing new habits you intend to do daily
- Committing to an educational program or class that might last a semester or longer.
- Joining a social or health club
- Committing to a regular/weekly schedule of social activities like a hobby get together, photography, stitching, mah jongg, canasta, poker, bridge
- Buying/ordering fresh flowers each week
- Subscribing to a meal prep service. How about a personal chef?
Consider adding no more than 3 long-term activities as part of your 20 goals.
The bottom line is make sure your list is sustainable. Overly ambitious planning defeats the purpose of the challenge.
Plan now to spark happiness and joy in 2020.
But what if you’re not feeling the excitement of planning your list? What if happiness and joy have been eluding you, not only during this past holiday season, but in this season of your life?
I can help you sharpen your focus and regain your equilibrium.
Let’s talk now so you can start the new year with revived hope and greater clarity about what’s possible.
Go ahead, reach out and contact me right here.
