1. Improve your growth mindset
Setting goals and achieving them can require changes in your life. To believe that change is possible, you can have an open mind and the awareness to accept any mistakes you might make along the way. You might apply daily affirmations to help you get there, but ultimately, improving your growth mindset can have a positive influence on how you set goals and achieve them in the future.
2. Keep a Daily Journal or Gratitude Log
If you don’t already make use of a journal, either a daily planner or a dedicated gratitude log, there’s good reason to start in 2023. Regular expressive writing has been linked to improved immune system functioning, greater psychological well-being, and better working memory, amongst many more.
How to Implement: If you consider yourself a creative person, you may love paper planners or journals; start with a daily log or weekly spread. Alternatively, a digital journal app or other goal tracking applications may be better suited to the methodical or tech-minded. Either way, a regimented journal system is an ideal tool for improving many aspects of your life at once, including organizational skills and mood.
3. Respond Don’t React
Because goal-setting is an example of responsive thinking, this one is a little bit of a catch-22 situation. Addressing negative behaviors offers tremendous rewards. Behavioral goals are designed to reinforce positive actions, not to discourage you whenever you make mistakes.
How to Implement: Being responsive means you aren’t simply taking in information, but also recording it for when you plan to act upon it. Having a notepad to hand allows you to rapidly log your ideas as you have them, though the same can be achieved with an online digital journal if you prefer those formats.
4. Set Process Goals for Creativity
Goals that relate to creative endeavors are especially appealing as there’s always the possibility of discovering a hidden talent. Even if you don’t, the process of creating something is fun. “Be more creative” isn’t a great outcome goal, because it’s too ambiguous.
How to Implement: As creativity is such a primal human instinct, there is plenty of opportunity to tap into it. Simply prioritize activities that allow you to exercise these skills. It could be cooking up a new recipe, writing a short story or revitalizing home décor – there really is no limit!
5. Improve Personal Relationships
Improving personal relationships is a great goal for 2023, especially considering the stresses and strains that this last year has thrown at us. In the business of life, we can overlook the most integral elements of life. Committing to more family time or arranging a social gathering a few nights a week are massively influential on your wellbeing. Starting a new hobby/activity with a friend or partner is a brilliant way to merge two goals, with the added bonus of extra motivation.
How to Implement: You can make use of a daily schedule for both work or personal life, but when it’s the latter, actively pencil in time to strengthen personal relationships. Actively organizing personal time may feel strange at first, especially when compared to simply letting it occur organically, but it’s an active step that encourages you to take friends and family more seriously, thus paving the way to improve those relationships.
6. Prioritize Self-Care
When you say “self-care,” most people think of a warm cupful of green tea, packed with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant polyphenols – yum! However, depending on who you’re talking to, self-care can take a myriad of forms:
- Physical: getting enough sleep, exercising, balanced diet
- Emotional: positive self-talk, an indulgence/reward
- Spiritual: meditation, mindfulness, time in nature
In truth, self-care simply means being active in the preservation of your health, which obviously includes physiological needs and mental wellbeing. Following a sleep schedule is one example of a self-care goal, but meeting a friend for coffee and a chat, or going to a yoga class on Tuesday are equally valid!
How to Implement: In order to assess how well you already practice self-care, try to get a mood tracker going. Aside from the fact that tracking mood offers its own benefits, you will quickly be able to determine whether you’re allocating enough time for the recovery of body and mind.
7. Gain New Skills
Gaining new skills, or developing existing ones to higher levels of competency, is one of the best ways to further your career. Taking skills courses, for instance in programming, sales or design, allows you to diversify your applications, proving a more valuable asset to any project or organization.
How to Implement: There are many routes for gaining skills, such as reading insightful books, attending seminars/classes, tutor programs attached to your company, training on the job, and dedicating personal time. Consider the skills required for jobs you anticipate searching for in the future to determine where best to invest your energy.
8. Get more organized with a daily planner
If the idea of getting organized is attractive to you, looking into a daily planner should be top of your goal list. On the surface, it’s just a way of scheduling your life, but there are many hidden advantages. While a planner is a physical record, brilliant for archiving and progress tracking, they are an absolute necessity for proper time-management and maximized productivity.
9. Focus and Block Distractions
It’s something we all struggle with, making it a prime choice for a 2023 goal. You can’t really force yourself to focus, which seems a bit ironic. The key is preparation, by finding an attractive, quiet space to work in, keeping that space free of anything that pulls your attention, and arranging sufficiently challenging work that stimulates and engages you.
How to Implement: There are some productivity systems designed to work alongside deep focus, but they don’t necessarily help you concentration by themselves. If you find yourself zoning in and out of work, consider adopting a strict focus time policy, where you commit to solid work for a set time limit. If that sounds difficult, learn how to activate Focus Time directly in the Friday planner.
10. Practice Time Management Skills
Effective time-management is a major part of being successful at work, if not life. We don’t really scrutinize this core skill, so actively trying to improve it can make a major difference to your output. When you hold strong time-management skills, you achieve more tasks in less time, which in turn keeps your stress low and expectancy high – you’ll have confidence to take on the most challenging projects!
How to Implement: As simple as the concept of managing time is, this ability doesn’t come naturally to many. The quickest way to change that is to be extremely attentive of how you spend time. You can use productivity methods like time-blocking, to ensure important jobs are done, or a regimented work-rest pattern as in the Pomodoro technique.
