How To Set And Stick To Your Personal Development Goals (Even If You “Failed” Before)!
Last Updated on 05/14/2025 by Nicky
How To Set And Stick To Your Personal Development Goals (Even If You “Failed” Before)!
It’s January 17. More than half of January is already gone. There’s every indication that every other month will fly by just as fast.
And if you’re anything like me you’ve set New Year’s resolutions (although I tend to start working on them before New Years).
My question is what tangible steps have you taken so far to really make those resolutions a reality?
Will you be looking back a year from now saying “Man I wish I had done xyz like I promised myself I would”?
Or
Will you be looking back saying “wow, I was determined and focused and I actually accomplished my personal development goals like I said I would”?
I’m asking myself these questions just as much as you are.
I’ve set countless New Year’s resolutions and broken more of them than I care to admit.
So what can we do differently this year to actually make our resolutions stick?
I’m going to talk about how I plan to set healthy & personal growth goals for the next year & more in today’s post so stay tuned.
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How To Set & Slay Your Healthy Weight Loss Goals For The New Year
1. Reflect back on the last year with brutal honesty:
One way to be successful with your plans for the next year is to reflect back on the last year and see where improvements can be made.
And when I say reflect back I don’t simply mean to ponder.
I mean to go through the past year with a magnifying glass and truly examine, with brutal honesty, just what got in the way of you accomplishing your dream.
It’s not fun.
It’s the opposite of fun. It’s painful. It may make you feel like a failure. But that’s not the point of the exercise.
The point is to truly examine what went wrong so that we can make the proper changes necessary so that this year will not be more of the same.
So ask yourself:
When did you give up trying to fulfill your resolutions?
Was it January, February, or maybe you quit in April?
Why did you quit? Was the goal too overwhelming?
We’re they too unrealistic? Was there not enough motivation?
Did life get busy and got out on the back burner to the point where you completely forgot about them?
Think about what the turning point was?
Write down what happened in the past that caused you to.
2. Be SMART
This year make your goals more specific.
One of the best ways to set a goal is to use the SMART method.
This means you are setting goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely…I talk more about them in my post here on procrastination.
It’s quite possible that you’ve set goals but they were so murky that you may not have known whether or not you accomplished them.
With SMART goals you know exactly when you’ve achieved them because they are so darn specific there’s no way not to know.
I go over goal setting and how to accomplish your dreams in this post here.
Related: https://www.verywellfit.com/how-to-set-weight-loss-goals-1231580
3. Get some accountability:
Knowing that someone is going to ask you what you’ve done this week to make your dreams a reality is one of the biggest motivations you can have.
I know for sure that I suddenly stop daydreaming and looking at random videos on YouTube when I know someone is going to be saying to me, “How are you coming along on fill in the blank?”.
There’s something about someone shining that right spotlight on your goal that really helps you see it in a more urgent light.
So find someone who will hold you accountable and consistently ask you about your progress.
It can be a friend, family member, life coach, therapist,… whoever you think will actually hold you accountable.
4. Do something differently
I know I know, this is groundbreaking but let’s be real.
How many times have we expected different results but done the exact same thing that we did last year when we epically failed to accomplish our goal?
Like all the time.
I know that I’ve done it time and time again and been perpetually surprised that it happened.
Umm yeah girl what did I expect?
So if you want different results you have to do something differently.
For instance, if your goal was to get in shape last year but you didn’t because you didn’t set any concrete goals then this year make your goal SMART.
Instead of saying I’m going to get in shape this year say by March I’m going to be able to run a 21-minute mile or I’ll be able to do 100 push-ups.
Or if you did set concrete goals last year but you still didn’t achieve what you wanted to achieve then take it a step further and say I’m going to get a personal trainer to reach my goals.
Whatever you do, don’t use the same exact approach that you used last year.
Sorry to be harsh but we already know this doesn’t work 🙂
Struggling with procrastination?
Conclusion To Healthy Goals For Weight Loss
I know change is hard.
Inertia is one of the strongest forces on Earth.
I remember the first time I started exercising again after many many many years of sitting on my behind. It was hard. It was in some ways painful.
But I know I would not be here 65 pounds lighter if I hadn’t.
We have to start thinking about the future.
If one of your personal development goals is to lose weight or get in shape then we can’t just think of the here and now.
Yes working out sucks now.
Yes, denying yourself something that tastes really good sucks now.
But how much more will it suck when we look at the scale and see that not only has the number not gone down or even stayed the same but has actually gone up significantly.
Keep in mind that I say this to you even while I’m debating whether or not to go bake some cookies.
The struggle is real ya’ll.
Don’t give up :)…please. You can lose weight.
