New Year Resolutions

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New Year is a time when everyone thinks of some of the resolutions. Have you planned your New Year resolutions.

Resolutions fall into various categories like health (losing weight/ doing exercises / getting better) and other things like learning new things / enhancing hobbies

But the problem is we are not able to carry it till February and forget it.

I will share a few things which can help you plan, maintain and carry it till the end.

Do have goals around the below 5 as it covers most of it.

1. Health – In Hindi there is a saying “Pehla sukh nirogi kaaya” – First most important happiness is you should be healthy
2. Wealth – In Hindi there is another saying “dusra sukh ghar mein ho maya”   – Second important thing is you should have money. Remember money makes money. Read about it. Invest in mutual funds, stocks, crypto (first by knowing about them). Don’t just stick to FD, it will reduce your money with inflation
3. Family – The most important and your backbone. Have some goals around them. Do have individual goals for yourself with respect to your wife / kids / mummy / papa / brother / sister, etc. (I would call it a priority)
4. Professional – The work you do at the office/shop or whatever you do for a living
5. Career/hobbies – You may have some career aspirations which are not taken care of as part of your work. Some hobbies and other personal things come under this category.

Golden Rule – It’s good to have long term goals (1 year, 5 years, 10 years) so that whatever you do today contributes to the final goal. if its not adding to the final goal. Don’t do that task today.

Do a visualisation of future yourself today. It has helped many people.

It helps you achieve more in less time.

This rule helps you in adding a purpose to the task. It has been seen if a task has a purpose attached to it, people perform better

First, you should have SMART goals / resolutions

I will read a testing book every day. (Not a SMART Goal)

rather

I will read 3 pages of “Lessons learned in Software Testing” at 9 PM (SMART goal)

What can all be done so you carry out your resolutions till end of year?

1.  Plan the things ahead Once you write it at least you are clear what you must do (you can Prepare a mind map like i did below)
2. Write it down in a diary 

First thing first, you should plan your entire year into the smaller goals below

You have a long-term purpose which can be achieved by the below kind of goals

What you want to do monthly (example pay your bills / claims at office), learn a new technology

You may want to oil your hair (Yes health is neglected sometime in all the work you do).

So do have overall task in all these categories

 

You may like to drink 6 glasses of water daily. You may want to switch off social media on weekends

Below are some of the Daily things that I would like to share I will be doing daily apart from many other things

This will vary based on each individual.

Plan for mindfulness and spiritual growth as well. When you try to connect to God(spirituality) it helps.

Do an Evaluation for the 15 days spent and the rest half on 15th of every month – Fortnight Goal?

If you are into testing, I believe that learning in these areas can help you,

You can add the technologies and things as per the area of interest you have.

If you already know Rest Assured, so you can add Karate likewise all other areas based on your need

You might want to start on your automation journey

It’s important to add some of your work(job) related goals. And Remember job is different than Career

You may have to do a certification as per org requirement. or some other things shared with you by your supervisor.

Sometimes your work does not give you a chance to work on things you want to. Take out time for those career related things

 

It’s important to create a brand for yourself so people know you by name for the good works you did

There are many ways available for this these days – improve your github / Stack overflow / medium / Quora / YouTube / participating in online events / communities

You can have this on your own way. Your name should be a brand itself (it takes time)

Apart from all this, below are some things which can help too

Some of your habits you must know are not good (you can learn to avoid those).

Volunteer for social causes (Giving gives you a special satisfaction)

Learn a new skill, revive your old hobby

 

How can you make sure you are working on it ?

You can create reminders/Meeting invite fot all the task you have planned in outlook or in Google calendar.

In case you plan to use office outlook just mark the meeting for the same minute(start/end time).

So  your calendar is not shown busy always for smaller task.

How can you do the tracking?

2 Ways offline / online

1. Offline – A diary which can be used to write your goal journals. It has pages in the start where you can write 10-15 things you want to daily and tick it and give yourself a score.

   

   You can create this in excel and take a printout. I do have this diary which is available at affordable price on amazon

1. Online – you can use Timecap, HabitShare – HabitTracker app , Everyday, Goalify , Toodledo,  Way of life , todo, Notion

It has been observed that when you share your goals with others. There are more chances of achieving it.

You become more accountable.

Here is the full mindmap

Hope this post helped you in some way to prepare your new year resolutions for 2022.

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