I did a story a while back about vision boards and how they can help manifest your dream life. Fast forward to late April and here we are quarantined for a month or more.
It can be easy to look at the goals you set for yourself during New Year’s and think, how will I ever get these done, or this is impossible because I’m stuck inside for what seems like forever?
It may seem like we’ll be quarantined forever and ever but despite quarantine, there are other ways to help rewrite and adjust your goals for the ever-changing year ahead.
Reflect first
Take some time to reflect on what you were able to accomplish before quarantine. Maybe your goal was to workout more and you had been going to the gym two to three times a week already.
Reflecting on what was accomplished, or maybe not even started, can help you figure out where you need to go from here. While reflecting, you can also prioritize your current goals. Think about what was important to you before quarantine hit us and why you wanted to accomplish these goals.
You may find that some of the goals you set back in December or January are no longer goals you want to keep striving toward. It’s okay to decide not to accomplish certain goals and to even rewrite or rework others.
Evaluate your new routine
Reevaluate your new routine during this time in your life. Are you waking up at the same time every day or are you sleeping in and getting up at different times? Take a step back to evaluate your new routine and see where your goals fit into this lifestyle.
Often times we set goals not thinking about how to implement them into our everyday life, with this new normal we need to take the time to set or reset goals that match our daily habits and routines. Think about what you’re doing every day and implement your goals and resolutions into that schedule.
Create new ways to achieve the same goal
I’ve seen it all over social media, people are stuck worried they won’t get to do what they planned. Now is the time to get creative with your goals. If your goal was to lose weight or workout but the gyms are now closed that doesn’t mean you have to stop working out. This just means you need to find a new way to do it. Try some at-home workout videos or go for a run in your neighborhood.
There are a lot of different ways to achieve one goal, you just have to find them. Ask friends or reach out to others that are working toward the same goals to find ways they are pivoting their routines to match their goals.
As I mentioned above it’s okay to rework certain goals so that they fit this new lifestyle.
Change the deadline for certain goals
Some goals may need to be pushed back further than the end of the year. If you wanted to travel this year, there’s no harm in planning out the perfect trip to take next year. It may be disheartening to have to move your goals to next year, but the planning put into them will make them worth it.
Changing the deadline can also mean moving the deadlines up for certain goals. Not all New Years’ resolutions have to be completed by the end of the year. It’s okay to give yourself an earlier deadline if you feel you can accomplish the goal or resolution faster.
Focus on fewer goals
According to Forbes, you should only focus on three goals this year. At the beginning of 2020, you may have set multiple goals for yourself. While this is great, try to focus your time during quarantine on a few essential goals – ones that you are able to achieve, and that can be done without going anywhere. Fewer goals mean you are able to achieve more.
While we may have a ton of time right now, once we go back to our normal routines we’ll have less time to focus on multiple things, so keep it simple for now. You may even want to create a month by month schedule that focuses on three or four goals at a time and how to achieve those.
Setting fewer goals can mean setting fewer goals within a certain timeline. Set three goals to focus your full attention to this month and then next month look back at your 2020 resolutions and pick three more to focus on.
Our new normal can seem everlasting and I know the feeling of going in circles. What we don’t want is for you to look back at your 2020 resolutions and realize you haven’t accomplished anything. Just because we are stuck inside doesn’t mean we can’t improve ourselves.
