We all know about New Year’s resolutions and how they’re something we hear about nonstop – for a week or two during January. Unfortunately, most people fail to stick to their resolutions and end up dropping it faster than they started, which is a shame. I’ve had a history of giving a hard time to people who do New Year’s resolutions, but my issue isn’t with the resolutions themselves. In fact, I think a lot of resolutions are healthy to pursue. The part I disagree with is waiting until the beginning of a new year to even try. That’s why in this article I’ll be going over why you should start your New Year’s resolution now.
New Year’s Resolutions
For those of you who don’t know, a New Year’s resolution is basically just a goal that people make to better their lives. It’s called a New Year’s resolution because they usually begin the goal at the beginning of a new year – the first of January. The harsh reality of these resolutions is that they help with procrastination, and people also usually lose the motivation and quit within the first few weeks of trying to achieve their goal. In other words, it’s a cycle of creating and starting goals to improve your life, but giving them minimal effort and forgetting about it for another year.
Why You Should Just Start Now
If a goal or “resolution” is worth achieving, then you should start immediately! If you’ve followed this blog for a while, I hope you’ve begun to understand the importance of actually beginning when it comes to personal finance. Whether it’s investing, learning some new skills, or getting that side hustle off the ground, it’s crucial to just start now! It’s important to plan and strategize, but that’s all worthless if you never actually get started. It’s imperative that you begin making progress towards your goals. If you don’t, you’ll probably end up looking back at things with regret – wishing you had begun sooner.
Everyone Is Afraid To Start Sometimes
I understand how intimidating it can be to start a new project – whether it’s investing or adding another source of income. We’ve probably all suffered from procrastination at some point. However, it’s in your best interest to kick that fear to the side and get started now. It’s scary, yes, but it’s better to try and fail than it is to do absolutely nothing! If you hold back now, you’ll end up regretting it later. It’s better to stop making excuses. Perhaps it’s nice and convenient now, but it’ll hurt yourself in the long run.
Failure To Launch
Letting your fear override you is one of the several things that can contribute to your failure to launch. Again, failure to launch is worse than trying and failing. You’re likely to get something out of trying, even if it’s just a learning experience. The potential payout is undeniable though. For example, let’s take investing. If you keep putting it off and try to formulate the best strategy, you could miss out on tons of growth that you would’ve had if you just done a deep dive into it with index funds and ETFs and learned with experience and time.
Even worse, don’t let the trend of waiting to start until January deter you from beginning when you need to. Start when you can, and you’ll see better results in the long run!
Force Yourself To Get A Jumpstart
Whatever the thing is, which made you click on this article when you should be getting a start on it at the moment, you need to just force yourself to do it. Set some specific, concrete goals. When you have those down, set a hard deadline and push yourself to meet it without fail. Sometimes it is better to just dive in so that you don’t find an excuse to delay further.
Stay Consistent
Of course, once you start it is equally important to stay consistent. For investing, you need to schedule routine investments – probably every month – so you can keep seeing real and observable growth. If you’re trying to create another source of income, then you need to push through the first month, review what you did wrong and right your course, then keep at it for at least 5 more months. Many side hustles need 6 months or longer to show real progress, so you need to be consistently working towards it during that time!
You’re Not In This Alone
Other people have gone through the same things you are. When you’re struggling, and completely unsure how you should handle a situation, it pays to seek out advice and to listen to others. Now, I’m not saying you need to follow their advice, but it’s important to listen. They may have wisdom that can help you with your risk assessment and finding ways to complete a task or goal, which may impact some of your approaches.
Find An Accountability Partner
For those of you who have never heard of an accountability partner, the term is actually self-explanatory. It’s exactly like it sounds, so don’t overcomplicate it – as most are prone to do with personal finance and self-improvement concepts. An accountability partner is a friend, family member, or spouse who serves to hold you accountable for a specific goal or accomplishment. For example, if you wanted to cut your spending on restaurants in half, you would likely want an accountability partner to help you with that goal.
Accountability partners can be for any goal, but I mainly use them and reference them as it relates to personal finance. A lot of people get help with their careers, professional development, and self improvement, but not everyone remembers to ask for assistance with their financial goals. Part of that may be because most desire to keep that aspect of their lives private. Even if you’re one of those people, having a confidant is valuable enough that you should let at least one person in on some of the details.
Conclusion
Hopefully all of this helps encourage you to actually begin your resolutions now instead of later – and gets you on the right path towards your goals. Don’t get discouraged at hiccups and setbacks, those are just part of the process. If you have some tips about setting and reaching goals, let us know in the comments!
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