Figure Out What You’re Going to Stop Doing First.
It’s the New Year, and everyone is jumping in and setting goals.
Most of those goals will be abandoned soon after we set them. We’ll tell ourselves there’s always next year and that we can’t possibly add new goals into our consistently overwhelmed and over-scheduled lives.
Statistically, we’re right.
According to Statista.com, America’s top New Year’s resolutions are managing finances better and eating healthier/being more active. According to US News and World Report, 80% of those resolutions fail, often by February.
I can relate. How many years in a row did I set a weight-loss goal that wasn’t achieved? What about eating healthy? I must say, the person that decided Girl Scouts should sell their cookies in January or assigned Super Bowl party deliciousness to the very point in the year my healthy-eating habit is wavering is pure evil.
It’s fun to plan and set the goals, isn’t it? To start with a blank page and dream of the possibilities of starting fresh in the New Year (or in this case the new decade)? We feel accomplished as we write down our professional and personal goals for the year.
We don’t fail at our goals because we are weak, lazy, or undisciplined. We don’t fail because we aren’t motivated. Instead, I contend that we fail most often because we act mindlessly, allowing our time to be filled with things that aren’t important to us.
We fill out lives with all sorts of clutter, and then every January we pile on another year’s resolution on top of that clutter. Like that carry-on that’s stuffed to brim, we try to squeeze one more thing on top of all the others. Which works….until it doesn’t and the zipper splits, spilling everything we own onto the floor.
That’s why the first step to setting goals we can actually achieve is not setting goals at all. It’s getting rid of our excess baggage to create the space we need to meet our goals. That baggage is the emotional and physical clutter we carry around with us, often not even knowing we’re carrying it at all.
Get rid of the clutter first, and then set your goals.
THE THREE TYPES OF BAGGAGE TO ELIMINATE
1. Mental
As an engineer, business owner, and parent of three elementary school students, I understand being busy. My calendar is a mix of work and personal. This afternoon alone, I edited thirty pages worth of notes, started this blog, responded to email, popped onto an online business training, took a break to pick up my kids at the bus stop, started dinner, responded to more email, fed the kids, took my eight-year-old to gymnastics practice (dad was picking up our older child from skiing), and continued writing this blog while waiting for gymnastics practice to finish.
It’s hectic, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Blending work and life is second nature to me. I work to track everything I do by making sure it is written down and well-documented. But, when you add in various special work projects or product launches, volunteer commitments, and the level of self-care necessary to mentally function at a high performance level, the mental toll can be high.
And what about when I feel overwhelmed? When that happens, it’s most often because something in my tracking systems has broken down. Decision fatigue is real.
Fully understand your own mental loads and eliminate where possible. Ask yourself the following questions:
What decisions are you making daily that don’t need to be made?
What can you reasonably delegate to someone else?
Can you do things like have a similar daily “uniform” (cite source) so you don’t need to spend time/energy picking out outfits?
Can you hire a virtual assistant to take care of some of those things?
Are there tasks you do (at home or work) that should be automated?
What tasks do you do that have a low return relative to the time spent? Can you delegate them? (Examples: formatting Word documents, formatting presentations, housecleaning, lawn care, etc.)
What tasks are you doing that don’t result in your growth? This is a big one for me. If I have mastered a task that I don’t love doing, it needs to be delegated to someone else.
Do you need to reset some of your personal or professional boundaries? For example, sometimes we find ourselves agreeing to things that were meant to be short-term and morphed into something more. Perhaps you agreed to organize carpool or order office supplies one time, and now it seems like you’re expected to take care of it all the time.
2. Relational
Relational baggage is baggage related to your relationships with others. It could be considered a type of mental baggage, but it deserves its own category. Keeping this baggage can affect your ability to succeed when it’s time to set those goals.
Having been on a diet at multiple points throughout my life, one of the first things I do on a new diet is toss the junk. If I have a late-night craving for chocolate, it’s simply too tempting to have it in the house.
The same goes for perpetually negative people, like those officemates who never have anything nice to say and are chronic complainers. Dealing with them requires a high amount of mental energy and patience. So, although you may not be able to avoid these types of people entirely, limit your exposure to them as much as possible.
Not to mention, did you know that watching three minutes of negative news in the morning before work has been correlated with a 27 percent greater likelihood of reporting your day as unhappy six to eight hours later? If that wasn’t enough to make you think twice about limiting your interaction with the negative, research shows that positive emotions broaden your attention and thinking, increasing your cognitive function over time.
3. Physical
One year, at more than a hundred pounds overweight, I set a New Year’s exercise goal. My alarm went off at 5:30am. I scrounged around in the dark each morning, using my phone flashlight to find my workout clothes and sneakers so I didn’t wake up my husband. One morning, about three days into my new workout regime, I couldn’t find one of my shoes. Still groggy, it gave me the excuse I needed to hop back into my warm, cozy bed and skip the workout. I found the shoe later (it turns out the dog had been laying on it), but that day turned into several. I didn’t get back into the fitness habit that year.
Another year, I did things a little differently. I set out my clothing and shoes the night before and planned my work out for the next morning. That simple change stuck. The less than 5 minute process of organizing my physical stuff (in this case, clothing) so I was ready to jump into my workout as soon as I woke up resulted in the exercise habit sticking (at least until I became pregnant and the routine changed again).
Beyond changing your habits, have you ever noticed the simple act of cleaning out your office or closet gives you this amazing feeling of lightness and relief? It’s because physical clutter really does result in mental clutter. You’ll not only be able to find things more easily, but you’ll have a new mental lease on life. Scientists have found that clutter can cause anxiety and impede your ability to focus.
Quick ways to eliminate physical clutter that don’t require a full-day cleaning spree:
Unsubscribe from all physical and digital newsletters you don’t read
Pick your outfit out for the next day the night before (including workout clothes)
Clean your office or pick up one room (15 minutes a day makes a dent fast)
Clean out your closet and donate things you don’t wear to charity
Hang up a key chain by the door (and reclaim those 5 daily minutes you spend looking for keys as meditation or self-care time)
Digitize that pile of notes on your desk you haven’t looked at in a month or more.
ELIMINATE THE BAGGAGE THIS WEEK, AND SET YOUR GOALS NEXT WEEK.
If you’re like me and have big dreams, you need space in your life to focus on them. That’s why you should spend the first full week of the year decluttering and eliminating or minimizing the amount of baggage carried into the New Year.
What am I doing right after I get done writing this week’s blog? I’m clearing out a couple of lingering 2019 projects. I’m saying no to requests that came in over the holidays that don’t align with my values. I’ve already boxed up and gotten rid of a pile of old books that were cluttering my office. I tossed or digitized the pile of physical notes on my desk that I haven’t looked at for months. I’m unsubscribing to email lists I don’t read. I’m considering where I need to reset some boundaries around my volunteer work. I’m eliminating mental baggage where I can.
Next week, I’ll be ready to tackle 2020 with gusto, and I will be sharing the goal-setting process I use. Until then, join me in first eliminating the clutter so you can make space to crush your own goals in 2020.
