Tag Archives: Goals

Are You Prepared for Another New Year?

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result, but expecting a different one!”

While scholars don’t agree on who actually to attribute this quote to — or even the verbatim wording of it — the meaning is still the same.

Many times, we repeat the same things; doing things the same way, over and over, and then get disappointed when we continue to get the same, undesirable results. It can be hard, and even challenging to admit that what we’re doing isn’t working. And then it’s not always easy to make the kind of changes necessary to get back on track.

Every year, typically sometime between New Year’s Eve and early January, many people look back on the year that is gone, evaluate what they’ve accomplished and where they feel they fell short; and then vow to make changes to achieve more of their goals or keep more of their resolutions in the new year.

Eat better. Sleep more. Worry less. Exercise regularly. Read a good book. Stay in touch with old friends. Spend quality time with family. Work towards that promotion. Save for that first home; that next home — maybe even your dream home. There’s always a mental and most of the time, also a physical list of things we set our sights on — wanting to do better with the good; and do less of the bad.

Forming healthy habits is a good thing. Surrounding yourself with close friends, having a positive daily routine, and living your life in the best possible way physically, financially, and spiritually are all excellent attributes of a healthy lifestyle. But when something happens to disrupt one or more of these things, it isn’t wise to continue going through life as if nothing’s changed.

Life is full of unexpected surprises and unplanned stops in the middle of places you never imagined ending up. How do you adjust to these new circumstances; things that weren’t a part of your life plans?

If you’ve been through a divorce or the loss a spouse, you know what it’s like to suddenly find yourself adjusting to having only one income; cancelling travel plans; contemplating how and with whom you’ll spend the holidays, and other changes suddenly thrust on you.

Perhaps your spouse carried you on their insurance, and now you’re having to pay for your own, along with the mortgage, and that new car that at the time seemed like a good idea. Maybe you’re among the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their jobs during the Coronavirus pandemic. The unemployment check didn’t cover all of your expenses, and you still haven’t found another job that pays the same wages you had before. Or the doctor called to confirm your worst fears of a medical diagnosis. Your high school son just told you his girlfriend is pregnant, or your college daughter just announced she no longer believes in the God who she was raised knowing.

While we can’t control many of the circumstances that may happen to us, we can control elements of how we prepare to take on those events when they do happen. Being prepared for life’s unexpected turns means being willing to create a plan now, so that you are where you need to be, have what you need to have, or are on your way to accomplishing steps to help you when a crisis enters your life.

I’m not suggesting that the impact of what may happen in life can be softened if there’s a good plan in place; as if planning keeps us from experiencing the pain of a broken relationship, the grief of the loss of a loved one, the agony of an unproductive job search, and many other things that come along.

But planning may help prepare one to make the most out of the new life’s circumstance — adjusting to their new normal; even if “normal” is for now, and not necessarily forever.

So what do I mean by that?

Start by outlining a Preparation Plan that lists life-changing things that could happen, and how you would be able to deal with them. Everyone’s list will be different and will depend largely on where you are in life. A mom of three young children may need to focus on her kid’s safety, well-being and their future. Whereas a single career woman may be more concerned about her financial stability (in the absence of a spouse’s income) in the event of a job loss. A retired empty-nester may need to be more concerned about living on a fixed income and the markets’ impact on their retirement.

People who live in cold-weather regions, the kind of places that are also prone to lots of snow, would be foolish to live as though they’ll never need a snow shovel, working flashlights and/or candles, and maybe even an alternate heat source. And who would move to Minneapolis in January, packing only their July Miami Beach outfits?

So what can you do now? Here are some of the things you might want to consider for your Preparation Plan, and implementing.

Make saving money each month a regular practice, so that you have a savings and an emergency fund. Create it, and don’t spend it.
Manage or eliminate your debt. This will also help you have more to save or invest.
Spend within or below your means. {See above}
Keep your resume updated, and never stop networking within your industry.
Make out a will and have an estate plan so that your spouse/children/parents don’t have to spend time in probate if you pass.
Take out a life insurance policy (and make sure your spouse has one) that covers your funeral costs so that your family doesn’t go in debt to pay for it.
Encourage your parents and single adult children to also have life insurance. Don’t assume they’re covered at work.
If you’re married, make sure you are involved with all of the business part of the marriage — know where all of the paperwork is and what insurance companies, banks, investment firms, social security, etc. you need to contact, should your spouse pass away or leaves.
If you’re single, create a document and leave with a very trusted family member or friend, that outlines all of the necessary contact information (your primary care doctor, workplace supervisor, banking information, mortgage or rental information, utility companies, and anyone else family may need to contact, should you become medically or psychologically incapacitated and unable to keep up with bill payments and other important transactions due to being in a hospital.

This is not a doomsday list, but rather a reality check. No one is promised another day or hour. If we could see into the future we’d avoid all of the pitfalls — choose an alternate route to work to avoid the accident; become more serious about our fitness and nutrition to avoid getting that health-related medical call; turn down that first date with the wrong person who would later leave and break our heart. We can’t see into the future anymore than we can change the past. But in the present, we can prepare for outcomes to better help us be able to survive; smart planning for whatever happens next.

Stop Stressing and Be More Confident with Your Life in 2020!

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New Year’s Day, and I can’t believe it took me most of the day just to get the drawers and cabinets in my bathroom cleaned out and organized. Sure, I took a few texting and email breaks, and spent over an hour on the phone catching up with one of my BFFs! But I still did not expect it to take so long. Nor did I anticipate how much junk – outdated, expired, and almost empty containers of junk that was just shoved in the back of my cabinets and drawers.

I know I’m not the only one. I also know that one of the reasons people like me, and most likely you, put off taking on the chore of cleaning and organizing our homes, and even our lives, is because it all just seems so overwhelming. This time of year often makes it even more daunting. So many “experts” on morning talk shows, columnists in newspapers, magazine articles, all talking about the many things we should be doing – personally and professionally — in order to be a “better person” and have a better year.

Get physically fit. Get healthier. Get financially secure. Get the house cleaned and organized. Travel more. Read the Bible in a year. Join a book club. Plant an organic garden. Raise chickens. And on and on and on. I mean who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed a bit; and confused about where to get started, and how to make most of it happen?!

When my sister shared a social media post titled 30 Challenges for 30 Days, asking me to join her in it, I replied within a split second — “NOPE!” The subtext of the headline noted: “That Will Make You a Better Person.” That extra message probably set me off more than the title. I don’t need to compete with someone, trying to accomplish so many things at the same time, all within some arbitrary time period, to prove I’m a better person! And I think that’s the trap we often fall into every year.

I am definitely a believer in doing things to make your life, your family, your home, and yourself better. But what those things are will be different for each person. And the priority of what’s most important to you now, versus what can wait, will differ. I mean I love pulling open my top bathroom drawer now and seeing how neat everything looks. I love finding what I need on sight; not having to shuffle a bunch of junk around, or getting ready to use some medical or cosmetic cream, only to find out that it expired six months earlier. But maybe your drawers are already organized the way you want them.

I decided early on that rather than trying to take a lot of things on at once, as if it would even be possible to complete all of the things I need to do, while shopping better, eating better, working out every day, going to bed on time, and getting my budget in order, etc. etc. – you know the drill – I would instead choose tiny projects, like the bathroom cabinets, and just work on it until it was done (no pressured time limits) before moving on to the next one.

So, in preparing for and thinking about my life in 2020, I broke things down into four major areas:

Personal Life
Home Life
Financial Life
Professional Life

It feels much better to think about changes and improvements I can make to FOUR areas in my life, rather than trying to work on 30 or 40 different things at the same time! Obviously, each one of the areas have subparts to them. But keeping my focus on the big picture helps me to plan better on how to attack something in each one.

For the next few weeks, I’m going to be sharing some of the things I’ve done, and how I’m choosing to tackle them in my own life, project by project – baby steps to success. Some may be things you’re already doing, or there might be some things that inspire you to try to accomplish. Other things may be of no interest to you whatsoever. But the cool thing about a new year, and our efforts to make a new start, is that we each should start with looking at our own lives, and apply only those things that impact you directly. If it’s not something that’s at the top of your list; don’t do it.

By the way, on day two of the new year, I spent time tackling the desk in my bedroom. It’s not an “office” desk, where I do work. It’s a desk that I use to write notes, letters, journal, read, and occasionally, work on my blog. The problem was, like an unused piece of exercise equipment, my desk had become the place to toss things I didn’t want to deal with, file away; a convenient landing site for whatever! Getting through all of the desk drawers and cleaning off the top of the desk really made my day. No one’s going to see it except for me. But that’s the whole reason I did it. For me! And that should be your motivation as well.

What will make you and your life easier, happier, and more convenient? Go for it!

Why Just Setting Goals Isn’t Enough

It’s Another New Year. Now What?

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Many of you stayed up late on New Year’s Eve, reflecting back over 2018, thinking about some of the things that you said you wouldn’t do, but found yourself at some point over the last 12 months doing it. Or perhaps you were taking note of all the things you said you were going to do in 2018, but now realize how many of them you didn’t take the time to follow through on.

Others of you woke up early New Years Day, grabbed your journal, and started outlining your resolutions for yet another new year; making promises to yourself to check off each one of the items as an accomplished success over the next 364 days. You had the same good intentions last year, and the year before that, and before that.

For most of us, it’s so much easier making resolutions than it is fulfilling them. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes we’re on our way to success, and LIFE gets in the way. We may resolve to save more money this year, and then end up in a car-totally accident, forced to purchase another vehicle, gaining monthly car payments, because that insurance company you’ve been paying premiums to will only give you about half the cost of another reliable vehicle. Maybe you resolved to look for a new job, and before you land that dream position, you lost your old one. Now, you’re just trying to figure out how to pay the bills, while searching for any new job to provide a paycheck.

Yes, unexpected things come into our lives. Some times we have to change our plans of doing more traveling this year; or put off registering for that foreign language course you’ve been promising yourself; or we may be forced to spend from our savings account to cover medical expenses we didn’t see coming. Life definitely happens.

But many of us fail to reach our goals because we don’t put a plan in place for how to accomplish them. We start talking about all of the things we want to accomplish and think that just writing them down is enough to keep us motivated and focused. In reality, writing resolutions or even setting goals, without including a list of strategies on how you plan to accomplish each goal, is little more than just dreaming. And strategies alone won’t do it, unless you’re willing to follow through with your plan.

If you desire to get out of debt this year, but you don’t do anything to change your current spending habits, then it’s unlikely that you will accomplish your goal.

A couple of weeks ago, I was astonished after reading a post by a woman who was asking advice in one of those social media forums where the focus of the group was on sharing ways people become more financially responsible; how they’d gotten their finances, credit scores, budgets, and other things under control. After reading what she posted, I saw MANY things that was obviously out of balance with her thought process and actions, beyond what she intended to be the main focus of her question.

This woman was writing for advice on whether or not she should ignore her phone bill (amount in the several hundreds of dollars) until after she got back from an international vacation she had planned because she didn’t have enough money to do both — pay her bill AND keep her plans for the trip. Her reasons were both humorous and sad to read. She had already paid for the actual trip and had saved up money to use for spending (presumably for meals, tips, excursions, etc.). A couple of weeks before she was suppose to leave, she gave her sister that money to get her car out from repossession. Then she talked about how her phone bill, now due, was so high because her sister and a cousin were also on her plan, and that neither one of them had paid their portion of the bill. She went on to mention that her sister said she didn’t have the money to repay her for the car or her part of the phone bill; etc. etc. You know where this is going.

Perhaps traveling outside the country was a dream of hers that she’d planned for all year. She did the right thing paying for it throughout the year, and then saving up for spending money. But the other things she was doing with her finances is what’s baffling. Having other adults on your phone plan is risky. I seriously doubt that the December bill was the first time one or both of those family members failed to pay their part of the bill. I could write five more blogs on the dangers of extending too much financial grace to grown adults. The title of the first one would be “Stop Being an Enabler!“

Then there’s the question of giving up your hard earned and saved money to help someone get a car out from repossession. Is it unfortunate that her sister won’t have access to her car for a few days or weeks? Yes. Is that an emergency worth spending her money on? No. There are other ways for the sister to get around, including getting rides with friends, family, and other forms of transportation. Is it her responsibility to bail her sister out of a situation like this? NO. If you’re ever considering doing something like this, first ask yourself how did that person get to the point that their car got repossessed. And then ask yourself, can you afford to go without ever seeing your money again, since it’s likely that they’re not going to have the financial resources to pay you back anytime soon, if ever.

What disturbed me the most about this scenario was how many respondents on the page actually told her to go on her trip on not to worry about the phone bill; someone suggesting she just cancel the service. Their advice was that the phone bill could wait, and that she “deserved” to do something fun. One respondent even said (when challenged by someone else who felt otherwise), that people “can’t just work all the time;” that paying bills wasn’t everything in life; and that everyone deserved some time to have some fun and enjoy themselves.

Even as I write this, I’m still baffled by a response as financially ignorant as this one. You’re not only messing with your credit score when you fail to pay your bills, but the bill will still be waiting on you to pay when you return, only it’ll be higher. And depending on how much time lapses, there’s also the possibility that the phone company turns your account over to a collection agency. Then there’s the reality that if your family members can’t afford to pay you back, AND you just left to go out of the country for vacation, spending the rest of the money you have, how are you going to make good on that bill when you do get back?

Unless your financial planning includes putting aside money each paycheck to use to bail other people out of their financial problems, then don’t do it; at least don’t unless it’s a real emergency. This is especially important if your attempts to help someone else with their financial crisis then creates a financial crisis of your own.

If you want to make changes to how you approach your resolutions, then start by creating a Plan. Don’t just journal thoughts in a book. Write down your Goals. List your strategies. Create a timeline. And outline the tactics to keep you on point.

Catching Raindrops in Water Buckets

Adjusting Your Life to Your New Normal