A new way to start the new year

Traditionally, New Year’s Eve is a time to resolve. Most people think about what they did in the past and promise to make change next year. Sometimes these resolutions stick—sometimes they don’t. Either way, I believe the gym industry appreciates the January surge.

Several years ago, I decided to make a pivot from this tradition. I wanted to look forward to the abundance of time coming in the next year. The new year is a full 365.25 days of opportunity!

I cracked a bottle of bubbly with my husband, grabbed an old chalkboard, and started listing out all the things we wanted to do the following year. Together we identified personal goals, family goals, vacations we’d dreamed of, and friends we wanted to see.

The result, we had a most fabulous year! We proudly hung the chalkboard in the kitchen, and on cold rainy Wednesdays we would look at it and say, “Oh yeah, we did want to go visit my aunt in the desert. Let’s do that this weekend.”

The year was more focused. Without taking anything away from my professional pursuits, it added direction and fulfillment to our home life.

It worked well for a couple key reasons.

1)      We wrote it down.

2)      We kept it light.

As I’ve heard so many times throughout my professional career, what gets measured gets done. There is a reason corporations live off metrics. By bringing attention to something, it indicates importance. And people like to work on important things.

I’m not proposing you start creating detailed metrics for your annual chalkboard. Please do not schedule quarterly performance reviews at the kitchen table. That would be going against the second key reason— keep it light. But what if you had a simple visual reminder in your kitchen or mudroom?

This is where the YOLO chalkboard shines.

Through the years our chalkboard has grown to be a treasured annual activity. Our kids now add their goals and insist on helping write directly on the board (which just kills the neat freak in me, but I’m trying my best to remind myself this is just for fun).

Many of our friends and extended family have taken up the tradition as well. One family makes multiple columns each year with specific and measurable (SMART) goals for each person separately, and then another column for their combined adventures.

A highly organized friend chose to use a whiteboard because chalk is too messy. Another couple lists destinations they dream of visiting. Nothing else.

One dear friend shared they had hung their board visibly in the kitchen last year (as it is a great conversation starter), but secretly wrote “get pregnant” on the back side just for the two of them to know and cherish.

To each their own.

Keep it playful. Keep it simple. And don’t be too hard on yourself when the year takes a crazy turn, and you only cross off seven of the 30 ideas. It is a prompt, not a rule book. Our house rule is not every goal should be achievable. We always include some extra audacious ideas.

The main thing is to embrace a “you only live once” (YOLO) mentality.

This is your year, enjoy it.

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*Excerpt from STEM Moms, published 2023. Available for purchase at ELMMcoaching.com and Amazon.