New Year’s resolutions sometimes get a bad rap, maybe because they’ve become synonymous with non-fulfillment. 🤷

People may avoid making resolutions for fear that they won’t keep them, or maybe they just seem cliché.

But we make commitments and set goals in countless other, important ways in our lives, and creating benchmarks can be an important step toward success.

So, call them whatever you want — resolutions, goals, commitments, endeavors — but why not strive for something? Why not try to improve yourself, your relationships, your life or the lives of those around you?

To get you in the spirit, we’ve put together four pro tips to help you set goals + keep them (or at least learn from the process).

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1️⃣: Write down the goals ✍️

There’s scientific evidence showing that writing down goals helps us achieve them.

This Forbes article explains why it works and notes that “Vividly describing your goals in written form is strongly associated with goal success, and people who very vividly describe or picture their goals are anywhere from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to successfully accomplish their goals than people who don’t.”

When setting goals, be specific, make a plan and write it down.

This is similar to the above point about describing the goals vividly. Making the goal to “paint more” is too vague. It leaves room for confusion or apathy. Instead, try making the goal to create three new paintings in the next six months. 🎨

Instead of making the goal to “exercise more,” try aiming to do a specific kind of workout a specific amount of times per week or month. 😅

When we interviewed local professional Amy Donahue about her effort — and success — in setting 30 goals before she turned 30, she said planning was an important part of her accomplishments. She had lofty goals, including traveling to Iceland and running a half marathon, and advised that planning each week or month was necessary.

Amy inspired me, and I also set 30 goals to accomplish by the end of January 2019.

As I'm nearing my deadline, I’ve realized that my more casual approach of just making sure I was checking things off the list regularly wasn’t enough. Making a monthly (or even weekly) plan to stick to would have kept me on track.

Writing them down also helps in overcoming anxiety. I have generalized anxiety disorder, which sometimes makes simple tasks feel paralyzing. Setting goals, writing them down and creating a deadline are intentional efforts that helped me overcome some fear and anxiety.

2️⃣: Consider the community

We are all about community-love here, and there’s no better way to improve your mood or get outside your own (crazy?) head than to give back. 🤟

Some small things can be a huge help, too. Giving blood, for example, is a low-risk, high-reward endeavor. Chattanooga’s Blood Assurance is almost constantly in need of more donations and any national disaster creates more demand. It generally takes less than an hour and you could save someone’s life. That’s pretty cool, and the goal is one that almost anyone can make and keep.

Want to see your community from a different perspective? Try going on a police ride-along. 🚓 In Chattanooga, any citizen can do so as long as they submit to a background check and fill out this form.

Try going to a part of town you’ve never visited before. I’d lived in Chattanooga for more than a decade and had never been to one of it’s most iconic landmarks — Sunset Rock.

Take a class and support a local business. I have my gun-safety class and climbing at High Point Climbing and Fitness on my schedule and have yet to make it to an archery class, but each of those goals connect me with new skills and local businesses.

Paddleboarding on the Tennessee River (thanks to local biz L2 Outside) helped me make some of my best memories of the past year.

It connected me with our city’s amazing natural resource, the Tennessee River, supported local entrepreneurs Dirk Unkle and Seth Bigham, and allowed me quality time with my sister. Win. Win. Win.

3️⃣: Consider self-care

Self-care may be a relatively new buzzword, but it’s about so much more than getting a mani-pedi.

Think about what Gandhi said: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

You can change the world by changing yourself. That’s easy to overlook or misunderstand. But it’s true. If you’re personally unhappy or unfulfilled, that’s going to show and everyone you’re around may feel it.

We may not be able to right all the wrongs in the world, but we can improve ourselves and when we do that, we are better equipped to help others around us. If every single person just attempted to be their best selves, the world would be better, as corny as that might sound.

I created self-care goals, such as “practice yoga or run every day for a month straight.” It made me feel better about myself, improved my health and my mood, and I’m sure that positively influenced the people around me, even if only in a small way.

4️⃣: Strive for progress, not perfection

An important follow-up to the idea of aiming to be your best self — and a lesson that applies to making goals, in general — is to strive for progress, not perfection. 👌

If you put yourself to the task of being your best self and then beat yourself up every time you’re less than perfect, that’s not beneficial, it’s just frustrating. 👿 No one is perfect, so remember the endless value of the process.

Don’t get hung up on the idea of failure, just resolve to be better than yesterday or better in the next moment than the last.

There’s value in being humbled. (My goal to go sailing showed me that.) And there’s value in “failure.” You don’t improve by being perfect; you grow by making mistakes + trying again.

#GrowthGoals progress

This is the list I created last year on Jan. 26 with the goal to complete it by the same day in 2019 (so I’ve still got some time).

For personal accountability — and hopefully inspirational — purposes here’s my #GrowthGoals progress report.

✅ = completed

❌ = not completed

👍 = scheduled/in the works but not completed at time of publication

✅ Make a public speech (Thanks for having me @RealTimeSummit) ⬇️

👍 Go climbing at High Point Climbing

✅ Go on a police ride-along (Thanks Chattanooga Police Department and Officer D) ⬇️

👍 Write at least one sentence of poetry every day

❌ Visit the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences

✅ Try water aerobics

✅ Give blood (Took three tries, and having it as a goal really helped me complete the task.) ⬇️

✅ Take voice lessons and perform one song in public (My amazing voice teacher and friend @rickrockiii helped make this dream come true for me. I still can’t believe it.)

✅ Create a succulent garden

✅ Do yoga or run every day for one month straight (I was on the struggle bus most days, but — again — having the goal written down and the fact that it was just one month, not what seemed like an endless, unattainable goal, really helped.)

✅ Go to Sunset Rock

✅ Revamp my bed/sleeping area

👍 Watch 10 movies I haven’t seen from the American Film Institute’s top 100 list (I’ve watched three, so far. I know what I’m doing over the holidays.)

✅ Dye the tips of my hair a bold color (Thank you @hairbystylistkelly and @chestnutstrand)

✅ Paddleboard on the Tennessee River

✅ Visit a state I’ve never been to before (Did someone say once-in-a-lifetime cross-country road-trip!?) ⬇️

✅ Create at least three new paintings

👍 Take a handgun 101 class (I’m going with @adamgrn on Jan. 5)

✅ Watch a full sunrise from a scenic location

❌ Learn to read a crochet pattern

👍 Swim with dolphins (My awesome sister gave me a gift certificate to do this.)

❌ Take an archery class

✅ Go sailing

✅ Create a minimalist wardrobe (AKA have a ruthless spring cleaning situation and give away items I don’t wear)

❌ Visit the Bell Witch Cave

❌ Go non-car camping

✅ Build with Habitat for Humanity

❌ Lose at least 10 pounds (I haven’t actually weighed in a while, so it’s incomplete for now.)

❌ Attend at least three networking events

✅ Create a parody video

When I wrote the initial column, I had a few people express that these kinds of lists set you up for failure, but I found just the opposite, as long as you keep your mindset focused on growth and progress, not perfection.

Every year I’ve written down vague resolutions and almost immediately forgotten them.

This strategy — including putting the entire list out very publicly, being specific and intentional and thinking outside myself — proved a success.

Sure, I didn’t complete everything on the list yet. But I’ve had more than 20+ amazing experiences I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It puts my other resolution efforts to shame.

I also personally believe that writing them down like this drew certain opportunities to me. For example, I didn’t know I’d be doing a parody video with Sean or get invited to speak at the Real Time Summitt.

There’s power in setting intentions. And if this is too hippy-dippy for you, I understand, but you may be able to make positive things happen by setting and holding those intentions. Just make sure to keep your eyes open and looking for the opportunities. 👀

I’ve still got some time, so I’m still working on the list, and I’m not giving up on the goals if I don't make the deadline.

So stay tuned.