First and foremost, I wish you all a very happy start to the new year 2022! My hope for you all is that this new year is your best one yet, and that it brings success and happiness across all aspects of your life.
Whether you wish for your 2022 goals to focus more on discipline, consistency or self-care, whatever it is - we have you covered.
Identifying your core goals
If there is anything that the past two years has taught me, it’s that there is great power in writing things down. So on that note, I would encourage you all to set out your plan of action for the year 2022 and write down the key things you hope to achieve. I find it useful using the following categories as a guide to identifying your core goals, but you can of course switch these up to make them more personal to you.
Career
Health
Love
Self-Care
Religion
Wealth
Dear FutureMe…
FutureMe letters can also provide an insightful way to reflect on your personal goals, and all that you set out to achieve at the start of the year. On futureme.org you can write an email to yourself that you will then receive at a future date. This letter is personal to you and can include any goals, reminders, visions, predictions etc.
that you feel your Future Self needs to hear. Once you decide on the future date that you would like to have the letter emailed back to you, you are all set to go! The letter will be stored in a way that you are unable to access until the date set by yourself.
Pro tip: Future me can also provide a useful way for your students to engage in the process of reflection. At key points in the academic year, you might encourage your students to write their own version of a future me letter that they can have returned back to them at the end of the academic year, to see if they have successfully fulfilled their own personal goals. (NB: please check with your safeguarding team first).
Time is of the essence
Typically with New Years resolutions, we know all to well how difficult they can be to stick to. For that reason it is important to be intentional with your goals. In the same way that you dedicate time to your career and developing your subject knowledge through CPD, you should also try to dedicate time to yourself - but is this easier said than done?
As teachers and school staff, we often struggle to find enough hours in the day to get through our to-do-lists, but how often do those lists include your own personal tasks?
Committing to at least one day a week, where you focus purely on your personal goals, can indeed make all the difference and allow you to be on track to achieving your holistic goals.
If you aren’t at the stage where you can dedicate a whole day to your goals, it might be more realistic to instead dedicate a few hours each week. Re-assess your work timetable and agree on a day that you can actually leave on time to focus on you!
There are only so many hours in the day, so make sure that the time you dedicate to achieving your goals is realistic enough for you, otherwise it will be more difficult to remain consistent with it.
Check-in
Agree on various points in the year that you can check how you are progressing with your goals. Create a vision of what success or mastery of those areas looks like for you? It might be good practice to find others who are interested in developing in the same areas that you have identified for yourself. In doing this, you can have an accountability partner and provide each other with a little encouragement along the way!
As you embark on your new goals take time to remember that consistency leads to success, and that it can take a minimum of 21 days to form a habit. If you fall off your goals don’t beat yourself up about it, dust yourself off and get back on track.
Don’t forget to turn your small goals into actionable steps to help you to better identify those small wins. In repeating these actions, they will eventually become helpful habits and before you know it, you will be much closer to the finish line.
I hope these tips are of use to yourself and we wish you all the best with your 2022 goals - You’ve got this!