Buckle Up For 2022, Let's Make It A Good One

Written by Michaela Smit

Thumbnail Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Photo by Peter Fogden on Unsplash

January, or as I like to refer to it, the month of reckoning. It’s when all the optimistic New Year’s resolutions I made the year before come calling. For example, pledging to work out three times a week seemed like a great idea in December, but now it just seems like a lot of effort. Making New Year’s resolutions is a long-standing tradition I’ve been following since I was a kid hoping that by making these promises, I will ensure myself a good year. It hasn’t always worked out that way though, since life is unpredictable (which we’ve all learnt through the last couple of years). Nonetheless, when December 31st rolled around again, I found myself in a familiar spot, asking what I wanted from the coming year. I have read blogs and watched YouTube videos on goal setting, and I’ve come across various strategies on how to achieve your goals, but there’s one method I found that is my favourite, and it’s become a new annual ritual of mine.

 Vision boards are a simple and effective way to plan what you want your upcoming year to be. The idea behind the vision board is that you have a clear picture that you can look at every day to inspire you to keep working towards your goals. The best part about them is that it’s entirely up to you what you want it to look like. The first time I created a vision board, I used old school poster board and pictures I printed off the internet, and I hung it in my room; the next time, I wrote out some goals on post-it notes and stuck them on my wall, and this year I made a digital poster that I set as my desktop background image. It’s about having a physical representation of your dreams in the world, almost like they already exist.

 I swear by the success of these boards because they helped me focus my life, and I will continue to make one each year. The first step to constructing one is to decide on a central theme for the year, which can be inspired by a quote, a general idea, or even a picture. This is what you will build the rest of your goals around. Once that has been decided, I like to categorize my other goals to get a well-rounded board because personal goals are just as important as professional ones. The categories I use are professional, health and fitness, travel, and hobbies. I think it’s essential to make a realistic number of goals, so I choose two or three goals per category and that way, I am not putting too much pressure on myself. I also only put things on my board that are in my control, in other words, something I can work towards achieving.

 The trickiest part about setting goals is finding the line between goals that are realistic and achievable but still ambitious. Choosing goals that are too easily accomplishable means you may not be reaching your full potential but choosing goals that are too out of reach and difficult leaves you disappointed and unmotivated. I try to add a mix of goals I know I can achieve with hard work and consistency and goals that are bigger and not necessarily guaranteed. It’s important to mention that it’s okay if you don’t achieve all the goals on your vision board. That just means they join the board again next year, or you re-evaluate if that goal is truly something you want to attain.

 Don’t be scared to be specific. The clearer you are about what you want and what you put on your vision board, the more likely it will come to fruition. Have your vision board somewhere where you can see it every day. Looking at your goals every day is a subconscious reminder for you to be active in pursuing them. Small everyday actions over an entire year add up, and if you’re intentional about how you live each day and spend your time, you will find yourself enjoying a year in review where you accomplished what you set out to. The majority of our lives are spent in the small everyday moments, so make sure those are the ones you’re appreciating and putting thought into.

Lastly, I once read that to be happy- you must stop waiting for the life you want and delaying your happiness until you’ve achieved some arbitrary milestone. Having goals and dreams to inspire you is important because it helps you build the life you want, but don’t miss out on the life you have right now because you’re too busy looking to the future. I’ve found that when I am content with my life exactly as it is, that’s when my dreams start coming true. Most importantly, and in this humble student’s opinion, the key to achieving any goal is believing that you can. After all, the big difference between people who achieve their lifelong dreams and those who don’t is that those who do believe they could.

Claire Keenan