New year, new me…..

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I love the new year.  It always feels like a fresh start.  A new calendar with nothing on it but dreams of what I would like to become.  A new year with a new me.  Or at least it is for the first several weeks before softball season gets into full gear, and I forget about all the dreams I had of the new me!  Does that sound familiar? 

Every New Years Day, my family and I sit down and rather than make resolutions, we set goals for the new year.  We started this when my kids were very young, and I thought eventually it would fizzle out; however, now they look forward to it and start thinking about what their goals (and rewards) will be the whole week before. 

Here’s how it goes.  We all sit at the table on New Year’s Day.  We go around the table and set goals in the following categories:

• Money
• Health and wellness
• Sports/Softball
• Reading/School

We can set as many goals in each category as we want.  My daughters, Belle (age 12) and Anna (age 9) tend to set two in every category, and my husband, Jon, and I only 1 in each.  After we set individual goals, we set a few goals to reach as a family such as “do a family activity that is not related to softball at least once a month”. After all goals are recorded, we allocate rewards for ourselves for each individual goal.  For instance, the girls set a savings goal in their money category last year, and Jon and I said we would match 10% of whatever they save.  It’s a good way to get our family moving and come up with plans to be a better version of ourselves in the new year.  In theory, I love it!  It’s fun.  It helps the girls understand what SMART goals are and how to set them, and hopefully it’s teaching them to be very goal oriented for their future. 

In real life though, this whole thing tends to blow up around March which is not so coincidentally when softball season for both girls starts in full swing.  We have great intentions, but we are very much the people you stop seeing at the gym in the spring when the new me has worn off.  So, this year I’m doing it differently!  I am going to record each of our goals on a piece of paper, laminate it and hang it in our kitchen somewhere we can all see it.  Each time we complete one of our goals for the day/week/month/year, we will be able to mark it on our tracker so we can keep up and keep the new us in the forefront of our minds all year round. 

We will enter our goals and be able to track them daily/weekly/monthly with the boxes on the right and the month tracker at the bottom using a dry erase marker.  I’ve created the file so you can use it too if you want to track your goals. 

If you decide to do this activity with your family, I want to encourage you to keep it positive.  Notice we use the word goals and not resolution.  This is very intentional.  The word resolution is very permanent, and it indicates a “problem” you need to “fix”.  In everything I teach my players/kids, I want them to understand that nothing is permanent, nothing is final.  We are always evolving, changing and growing.  We are never perfect thus we’re not “resolving” anything.  Goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). They are perfect for being a better version of yourself tomorrow (or next year) than you are today. 

Focusing on being a better version of ourselves, we try to create goals such as “I want to read one chapter book every month so I can become a better reader” or like my daughter set for herself in 2023, “Be able to do 20 push-ups by 2024 so I have more upper body strength.” Both goals are specific.  We’re saying what type of action we want to do and how much which make them specific and measurable: “read one chapter book” and “do 20 push-ups”.  They are both achievable because you’re creating a goal that is possible.  For instance, saying “I want to read 60 chapter books a month” is probably not achievable unless you only read every day.  You want to create goals that will set you up for success, but you want to challenge yourself as well.  Now, the relevancy of the goals is dependent on the person setting them, but in these, the first person wants to become a better reader.  How do you become a better reader?  You read more!  So, the goal is relevant to the objective of becoming a better reader.  Lastly, both are time-bound either by the year or the month. 

At the end of the year, we circle back to the previous year’s goals and talk about what we’ve accomplished, what we could have done better, and reminisce about why we set those goals.  Sometimes, throughout the year, the goals become irrelevant, and we give up on them, and that’s ok.  For instance, last year my oldest daughter set a goal to make her middle school volleyball team.  This year, she started running cross-country and lost interest in volleyball as a fall sport.  Her goal became irrelevant. 

Maybe this is something you can try with your family this year and start a new tradition.  Once your kids understand how to set and achieve goals, they can make goals for other areas of their life.  For instance, my daughter sets these goals but now she also sets goals for her cross country meets and softball seasons.  It’s a habit that can be transferrable well into their professional and grown-up lives.

Download the goal tracker here!