Goals vs Resolutions: Which One Will You Choose?

Happy New Year everybody! I cannot believe we are here already, at the start of a new decade. Although not much of a New Year’s Eve socialite, I do love to use the very first day of a new year to reflect a bit and to set goals for the future. 

I have much to be grateful for as I say good bye to 2019. I have visited many beautiful places, been recognized for my photographs, met many wonderful people and strengthened my relationships with the ones already present in my life. I have accomplished some very important goals which in turn has given me courage to keep going and keep aiming high. Of course I could not have done any of this without the support of my wonderful family and friends and all of you my readers, who give me the necessary push and encouragement to keep going in this endeavor. 

I want to take this opportunity of welcoming the New Year to talk a little about New Year’s resolutions. For a very long time, I used to be the person that would enthusiastically set some very ambitious ones as soon as January 1st hit, only to completely forget them by the time next month rolled in. It left me feeling frustrated and annoyed with myself. I couldn’t quite figure out why it was so easy to make these resolutions but yet even easier to abandon them at the first opportunity. It wasn’t until I started going deep and doing research that I realized where the crux of the problem is. In a gist, what I realized is that New Year’s resolutions tend to be quite…vague. We make promises to each other to be more fit, eat less junk food, lose the weight, call our mothers more etc…But these statements are mere expressions for what we wish to happen without any actual specifics on how to bring them into reality. This is why most New Year resolutions don’t work – they don’t include a concrete plan on how to achieve them! And without any concrete plans of execution, things tend to fall apart the moment we start feeling less motivated. 

Instead of resolutions, I started to set specific goals for the coming year. Goals imply a much more specific blueprint for action. There is a popular saying going around online whose author is long forgotten but whose words resonate loudly: “A dream without a plan is just a dream. A dream with a plan becomes a goal.” Or something like that 😉 The point being is that when we write down our desires for what we wish to accomplish in the coming year in a specific and intentional way, we are much more likely to stick it out and bring it into fruition. For example, instead of proclaiming, “In 2020 I will finally lose the weight,” narrowing down how much weight we want to lose and by what day we will lose it can truly help propel us in the right direction. This can be further broken down into specific steps we need to take to make this goal achievable. I will use my own goal as an example to illustrate this concept. Usually it goes something like this: 

In 2020, I’m committing myself to continue my South Beach photography project for the next twelve months. I plan to go down to South Beach at least twice monthly to shoot for two hours. I commit to go over my images with my dear friend Sonia who will hold me accountable to my goal. By the end of the year, I will have collected at least a 1000 images as part of the project.

 The other important aspect of goal setting is going deep into ourselves and asking the big WHY. Why do I want to start a photography project? Is it because I want to get motivated to shoot more? To hone my skills as a photographer? To get published in a magazine? To share the uniqueness of South Beach with other people through my photography? Asking ourselves the why and answering it honestly helps us stay motivated when things get busy and remind us of the bigger purpose behind what we are trying to achieve.

Of course no plan, no matter how detailed or specific, absolutely one hundred percent guarantees that we will stick to it, but becoming more concrete and intentional breaks our seemingly grand goals into small specific steps that are much more easily manageable. I must tell you, since I’ve started doing this, I have been able to achieve most of what I’ve set out to do. And I’m just at the beginning of it all. As my research has shown me, most of those people whose work I admire have been using this method successfully to achieve their own dreams and resolutions. 

Personally I have several goals that I’d like to achieve in the coming year. I had sat down on the morning of New Year’s Day with a cup of steaming coffee in my hand and wrote down all that I’d like to see happen in 2020. I plan on revisiting this list quite frequently, tweak it as necessary and hold myself accountable to my achievements. I hope to see you do the same. May 2020 be a year of accomplishment, gratitude and fulfillment, no matter how small or grand our goals are.

*** pictures taken last year in the Swiss Alps, one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. Funny enough, I realized I never got to posting these pictures before ***