It’s April and I forgot about my New Years goals? Now what?
By: Sarah Bolte, LMHC
While making New Year's resolutions isn’t really the vibe anymore, a lot of people still use the changing of the calendar to identify things they want to do or succeed in throughout the year. We know a lot of the typical ones; go to the gym, scroll less, read more. But what about when it’s already spring and you don’t feel you’ve accomplished any of these things. Those first three months of the year sure felt like a whole year on their own and even though it’s snowing in April (sigh), you want to get back on track and make some progress. But what does that progress look like?
Is progress what the friend-you-haven’t-spoken-to-in-years posts on Instagram of baking every week (questionable) and doing daily at-home workouts (who even has the time?!) or, is progress the fact that you managed to pick up a book and read a chapter or two in February but totally missed your Storygraph goal. We can easily get stuck on what our progress should look like instead of what it could look like. Skip what it should be and think about what you need.
A progressive way of thinking.
Think about progress differently. Progress viewed as a circular-process rather than a linear-process can help change the way you think about your goals. In a circular-process, you are always going clockwise around the circle and never backwards like we think about in linear-progress tracking. You shift through different stages of motivation and action in that circle and this impacts your goals.
Contemplation is at the start of that circle. Let’s take scrolling less as an example: at some point, you’ve realized you’re scrolling too much on the ‘gram and feel it’s probably better for you to put aside this stupid rectangle and do something else (don’t identify the something else yet, that’s for later). At this point, you’re in the contemplation stage - you want to do something but you haven’t figured out the how or fully understand the why, but you want to make it a goal. Maybe you bring it up with your partner or your therapist, but only briefly.
So when does the action start?
So your goal is a thought but now you’re frustrated with not being able to act on that thought. You haven’t made the changes you feel would help you and again, it’s April, it’s snowing, and why start now. How do you get past the contemplation and to the action? This is where you need to get to the roots of you goal and ask yourself a few questions:
Am I being specific enough in what I want to do?
How do I know if I’m meeting my goal?
Is it reasonable for me to set this big of a goal? And right now?
Am I giving myself enough time to get it done?
Being specific enough. You want to scroll less, but what do you mean by that and how are you going to do it? Do you want to scroll less at night? To do that do you put time-limits on your apps or do you delete those apps entirely? Really break it down.
Then think about you and the now. The “reasonable” part. Maybe chat about it with your partner, a trusted friend, or your therapist. If now feels like the time to start or restart your goal, how do you make sure it fits within your means? Do you feel well enough to start something right now or do you need to build up your toolbox first in case things get too uncomfortable?
Remind yourself that progress isn’t linear. Instead reflect on this speed bump that feels like a regression but is really just part of that circular-process. Maybe you haven’t kept up with everything you wanted to start this year, but those first three months were really long and dark. Now the sun is out and it feels okay enough to start again. That’s good. Amazing even. Maybe you’re thinking about where you’re at on your progress-circle and breaking down how to get a goal restarted. I love that for you and hope you can love that for yourself, too.
About:
Sarah Bolte, LMHC(she/her) is a psychotherapist at And Still We Rise, LLC, Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Registered Art Therapist. Learn more about Sarah here.