Prove yourself next year

The idea of a new start is appealing for everyone.

A new year means a new you. The new year brings hope and motivation to change.

Social media pushes things like workouts, diets, meal prepping, vision boards and so much more. Most people end up failing by February, which is OK because it’s hard to change your lifestyle and your goals get to be overwhelming.

I tend to have the same goals each year and each year, without fail, I fail. I get busy or lose motivation or just plain forget. It gets to be stressful, trying to balance everything that is already happening in my life and having the discipline to try to add something else to my plate. 

Last year I got tired of the same goals over and over. So I decided to make a very broad goal for myself — “start doing things that scare me.”

I didn’t realize how much I tend to avoid things because I am afraid. I didn’t tell anyone of this but it was my mantra over the year. 

Every time I found myself backing out of something I repeated this in my head and just did it. Eventually I told my sister, who was very happy to remind me when I didn’t want to remind myself. 

This led to some great conversations, exciting memories and things to hold onto when something else scared me. 

Doing these things that scared me taught me that I can do so much more than I think I can. The things like going to the gym or to go on social media less came in time. 

Knowing I could do hard things led me to apply myself more and believe in myself. 

Social media paints a picture that our goal has to be about our physical betterment or how to fix ourselves so we are happier but in the long run it ends up making us feel bad about ourselves because we couldn’t stick to our goals. 

But our goals don’t have to be about our body, work or money. They can be as simple as “pet more animals” or “read 10 books.” 

There is such a thing as fun goals. I think we forget that. 

So make your goal this year to dance more, sing loud, play more, learn to cartwheel or to do something scary. 

Our goals can be fun or we can try to push ourselves but if you find yourself failing constantly with the same goals then maybe you need to change your goals for a year. 

Sometimes to achieve what you want you need to first prove to yourself that you can do hard or scary things.