Mapping Out Your New Year

It’s arrived. I turn it over in my hands, appreciating the new leather, running my fingers over the embossed 2020 on the cover. Cracking it open, I’m met with initial stiffness and resistance as with the start of any new thing. To limber it up, I shuffle the pages with my thumb from front to back and back again. Now the crisp, sparkling blank pages greet me openly. They’re bright white, empty, and brimming with the promise of things to come. It’s a new year and a new calendar.

A tool to plan and direct the flow of time as best we mortals can. Skipping past January, February, and all the other months, I find the few blank pages in the back. It’s here I’ll make my mark.

How many of us get into our car and begin driving to a new destination without first putting it in the GPS?

I’m guessing not many. The thought honestly causes me anxiety. Most of us, however, began moving forward in this new year without a clear idea of where we might want to end up or how we’re going to get there. I once had a personal calendar prompt me to make a roadmap for the coming year. I’ve done it every year since.

This roadmap helps me intentionally take small steps toward big goals. It’s a powerful exercise. Sometimes I even learn things I didn’t know about myself. With this knowledge, I prioritize what activities I engage in and where I spend my time all year long. We don’t have infinite time and energy in our lives. We have to make choices about what we say yes to doing and what we have to say no to doing. I want to choose things that will keep me moving in the direction I want to go. A path I thoughtfully set out on at the beginning of the year.

Let’s take a minute and do this together. Take out your phone, and set a one-minute timer. Write down all the things you want to accomplish or who you want to be at the end of this year. Stop when the timer goes off.

Now, look over your list and pick the top five that you want to pursue. If you don’t have five, that’s fine; you don’t want more than five. As we established earlier, we have limited time and resources to accomplish these in the coming year. Picking too many could be overwhelming and result in a sense of failure if you don’t attain them all. In reality, achieving any personal goals this year, or just surviving the year, is a success.

Now that we’ve identified where we want to end up this year, we can map out how we’re going to get there. Having chosen the things that are most important to you, take a few minutes for each one and write down what would qualify as achieving this goal. These big goals represent our destination. They’re broad and vague, but now it’s time to refine them and create more specific sub-goals that are going to serve as signposts to our destinations.

I’ll share one of mine with you.

I wrote that I want to be in a better place financially at the end of this year. Now I have to decide what that looks like and what steps I can take to get there. Think about one of your own goals and what it would take to feel like you had accomplished it at the end of the year. For me, I would say I accomplished my goal if I built my savings up to some specified number, paid my car off, and had a zero balance on my credit card at the end of the year. Those will serve as my signposts to let me know that I’ve arrived at my destination.

Looking at your goals, write down some signposts that will help you identify when your goal is accomplished. Do this for each of your goals.

We’re off to a great start! Let’s get into the specifics, the turn-by-turn directions, if you continue to humor this metaphor.

Pick one goal and look at one of its signposts. What specific actions can you take to get there?

Back to my example, getting a certain amount in savings is one of my signposts to my ultimate destination of financial security. I decide that putting a certain amount in savings every paycheck is the best way to accomplish that. Sounds simple enough, but what about those times when I dip into my savings? That’s an obstacle to me achieving this short-term goal. It’s essential to identify and plan contingencies for these obstacles. They exist, and most likely are the reason you haven’t achieved this goal in the past.

My obstacle can be overcome by better budgeting. If I make and stick to my budget every month, then I won’t be continually dipping into my savings, which would thwart my goal of building up my savings. It’s a little more work now, which is why having less than five is important, but go ahead and map out your short-term, turn-by-turn directions for each of your signposts. These are the small, everyday things you can be doing to help you achieve your big, long-term goals. Doing a monthly budget is my turn-by-turn directions to getting to my signpost and ultimate goal.

Finally, I allow myself to flip to the front of my calendar and start planning. I have my destination in mind. I put in my directions throughout the year to get me where I want to go. I know that it is a little more work than your traditional New Year’s resolution. However, a big goal that is broken down into specific components, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive, is more likely to be achieved.

Continue to monitor your progress toward your goals. Contingency planning will bolster you when the going gets tough. Planning for obstacles helps you overcome them, and monitoring your progress will help you adjust the plan when obstacles you can’t predict creep up.

Enjoy your journey throughout the year, embrace detours, and celebrate reaching your destination.

Happy planning!