KickStart Your Year Off Right By Setting Goals & Make It As Fun As Riding A Bike
KickStart Your Year Off Right By Setting Goals & Make It As Fun As Riding A Bike
Do you remember your first bike?
Or better yet, do you remember how wonderfully fantastic it felt like when you’ve finally figured out how to ride your bike for the very first time?
Yeah, but what does any of this have to do with setting goals, you may ask?
The answer is everything, I’m here to tell you that like riding a bike, setting goals can actually be really fun!
Find out more below on how to kickstart your year off right by setting goals and make it as fun as riding a bike!
(Can’t wait for it? Scroll to the bottom to download your Free Printable Goals Tracker)
You know that feeling of pure and utter joy that you get as you zip through the wind on your shiny new bike?
That exhilarating feeling of being able to just get on that bike and take it for a spin around your neighborhood, knowing that you can now balance yourself and you are in total control of your bike.
This is how achieving a goal can feel like too!
When you are first starting out and learning how to ride a bike, you will find that you have this fear of falling, of scraping yourself, of bruising your skin, or worse yet, of breaking your bones.
After a few more attempts of trying to ride your bike and falling off, you grow a little wiser about what you expect.
So you vow to try things a little differently each time you get back on your bike.
- Maybe this time, you stick out your one dominant foot to brace yourself from an eventual fall.
- And then the next time, you wear a helmet because that last fall onto the pavement was a really close one that came just inches from knocking you out cold.
- And then finally after a few more times, you remember to use your brakes so that you don’t become roadkill to an eager teenager who had just barely passed their driver’s exam.
All jest aside, setting goals and maintaining them doesn’t have to be a fear-inducing task.
Through trial and error, when you make a specific plan and break it up into short, attainable tasks, you can achieve what you have originally intended to do all along.
January is typically the time of year when everyone starts to think about goals with the intention of setting the year off to a great start.
But according to this article from the HuffPost, only about 8% of us actually follow through with our New Year’s goals.
Thus all of that good intention gets thrown out the window along with the dishwater just shy of the 2nd week of February!
Why?
Because we make the same mistakes over and over again each year with our vague statements to ourselves.
We say things like our goal this year is to give up junk food, lose weight, save money, make more money, etc.
And, just like first learning how to ride a bike, we then forget to anticipate the inevitable fall, the struggle that follows when we have our hard days.
Sure, you will hit your inevitable bumps on the road.
You fall off your bike a few more times than you care to admit.
Then you swear off on your goals entirely before you even give them a chance to come to fruition.
And because of this, you see goal setting as a failure just as you have felt when you have first learned how to ride a bike for the very first time after falling down so many times before.
But like riding a bike, if you keep pedaling and push through those rough patches and those hards bumps in the road, you will find that you will develop your newfound courage muscles that you’ve been honing day after day, week after week, and month after month as you wear your cuts and bruises like they were your very own medals of honor.
Be Specific, Be Honest, & Track Yourself
- when you write down clearly defined tasks,
- set out to accomplish your given task, and
- check it off your to-do list,
You will feel as light as a feather when the weight of it all will seem like it has just fallen off your shoulders.
That carefree feeling of being able to ride freely through the wind is as liberating as just learning to ride your bike for the first time.
One that is filled with intention and sheer determination to push through it anyway and keep pedaling on.
It is Possible!
You’ve earned your stripes and you wear them proudly as you pedal as fast as your two feet can take you down the winding street of your neighborhood.
You can’t wait to show off your new skills to everyone, heck!
Anyone whose someone would know just how hard it is to learn how to ride a bike for the first time!
They’d definitely knew how hard you’ve tried.
Because after all, they were once a precocious kid just like you, right?
Except that now, you’re not a kid anymore.
Adulting 101
Instead, you’re a full-grown woman who wishes more than anything that if you could just go back in time, you’d tell the past version of you to just not sweat the small stuff and just enjoy the ride for as long as you possibly can.
Isn’t that what we’d all like to tell our past selves, knowing what we now know?
Now, year after year when January hits, we find ourselves faced with the excitement of new opportunities and possibilities for what’s to come in the new year.
We can use these mistakes and learn and implement some powerful lessons throughout the year and we work and push through the tough parts of the ride.
Lessons that will help us set goals, accomplish them, and check them off throughout the year as we discover the pitfalls we’ve now learned what to watch out for.
It’s Like Riding A Bike
Only now, we will be better prepared to make those sharp turns and avoid those pitfalls that we’ve grown accustomed to before.
And when we have finally developed those courage muscles and acquired this new skill, we can finally ride freely and with glee, as we check off another goal on our list of accomplishments this year.
Just like riding a bike, you then find out that you can now balance yourself and you are in complete control of your own destiny when you have set an exact plan in place, practice it consistently in small chunks at a time, and build upon your skills.
So, are you ready to ride that bike?
Let’s do this!
To help you identify, map out the steps, and break down your tasks, I have included a Free Printable Goal Tracker to help you pedal along and enjoy your ride this year once and for all!
