Written by Ashley Lopez

Hi everyone, welcome back to Ashley Spills. Ashley, here. You can check out my last post here. I’ve been thinking about why New Year’s Resolutions are so hard to keep—at least for me they are. Is it because I forget what they are? Or maybe because I don’t have them on display? Another possibility is that I keep pushing them back a few months, or a whole year; “This didn’t work out in 2020, let’s try 2021.” Nope, not this year. If anything it’ll sound more like, “I did this in 2022, but I could do it better in 2023.”

Here’s what I’m going to do different this year

I’ll refer to resolutions as New Year’s resolutions on this blog, but personally, I’ll call them something else: Ashley’s 2022 Purposes. Will yours have the traditional name? If not, think of a name that means something to you.

I will have my resolutions on display in many locations:

• Notepad on my phone
• Sticky note on my laptop (e-note)
• In my Passion Planner
• On my desk
• In a notebook
• In my car

I have quick access to all of these places for easy reference and reminders. In addition to having them displayed, I will also add action items and SMART goals to each month in my Passion Planner. This is something I’ve never done before, I haven’t planned out my to do items a year (or even six months) in advance. Now that I’m writing this, it sounds a bit silly that I haven’t done so because that’s the whole point of my planner. However, I still make use of it in other ways, which I’m grateful for. 2022 will be different in a planning sense—I know it will be.

How can we hold ourselves accountable?

You can hold yourself accountable in many ways. The tricky part is pushing yourself to take the actions to stay accountable. For example, to adjust our mindset to be responsible we have to want it. We have to want to better ourselves. Another thing I’m going to carry out this year while I’m planning my goals for 2022 is defining my values. (E.g. Why is doing XYZ important to me and how will it affect me if I don’t complete it? Is XYZ going to make me a better or more productive person?)

As I mentioned before, your best friend is you. You have to be responsible enough to push yourself to accomplish what you want to do. For example, at work, I’m in an accountability group and as motivating as it is, I’ve noticed that some of the members don’t reach their goals. This goes to show that even the people around you cannot make you do something if you don’t put the effort in to do it yourself.

Hold yourself accountable by reminding yourself why you want to reach it or complete it. (Please figure out your “it” by the way.)

Let’s make a promise to ourselves

This year I promise myself to look at my resolutions, create my goals/to do list, and remind myself of the value each resolution has for me. I will also promise myself that in moments of feeling unmotivated, I will go out to find inspiration. Instead of doing a mid-year check in with myself, I’m going to look at this in a business perspective: quarterly checks. This way, if I catch myself and goals slipping through the cracks, I’ll catch it sooner, rather than later.

You are your own boss, so be it. Be a self-starter and get everything planned and DONE! On Sunday, I will share my New Year’s resolutions, or Ashley’s 2022 purposes. (I’m supposed to receive my new planner by then, but we’ll see… .)Yesss, let’s get it.

Thanks for reading, xo.

BY THE WAY…