As with every year at this time, with the new year looming on the horizon, I start planning my goals and aspirations for the new year. Resolutions is a word that tends to give a lot of people the heebie-jeebies and its not one I use much. I prefer to make plans, goals and generally consider what I might be able to do differently in the coming year.
Gamify Your Life
I recently saw a video by Dawn Michelle, a tarot and journaling YouTuber, talking about Gamifying Life and there’s some real appeal for me. Using the mechanics of role-playing and video games, she broke down her personal goals into categories:
- Vitality (strength) for fitness, health & wellness
- Insight (intelligence) for personal growth (learning, reading, classes, practicing a skill)
- Charisma for relationships
- Wisdom for spirituality
- Dexterity for work, professional life
She turned her journal/planner into her Quest Log, tasks become Quests, XP are points assigned to each activity and will allow you to “level up” and loot is whatever personal rewards you assign to completing a task or leveling up.
She also built in some play by creating a “Roll for Initiative” using a D20 die and a list of 20 tasks or activities. You can built an Initive List for any type of task or activity. You could make a special list for chores or work, or create a list that includes tasks combined with more pleasurable activities like “take a nap” or “have a sweet treat” as well as chore, work or fitness tasks.
Dawn Michelle provided a downloadable PDF to reference as well as some of the projects and goals she is setting up for herself. Keep in mind, some of her goals are specifically tarot focused so if that’s not your bag, you can certainly substitute the tarot portion out with whatever you are passionate about (i.e. marathon training, bible study, finishing grad school, etc).
I also like attaching a “loot” status to completing a certain number of tasks and/or leveling up. Small weekly accomplishments allow access to a small Loot like an extra hour to read or a cookie for dessert. Accomplishing or leveling up at the end of the month could loot like buying something I’ve been wanting or spending a whole Saturday playing games. I like thinking of loot as not always a physical reward. A prize can often be time, relaxation or play.
I really like this idea of integrating a more gamified approach to my goal-setting as I think it will add an element of fun. Isn’t this why people love those tracking sections in planners? The joy of filling them all in and checking those boxes!
New, Old, Stop and Go
Another option is to just sit with your notebook or journal and ruminate on what you accomplished this year and what you might want to do in the coming year. I like the idea of setting a few goals focusing on one goal to start, one goal to continue, something you might want to stop doing, and some place you’d like to go (these are listed in the image at the top of this post). Rather than just creating a laundry list of “do, do, do!” this gives you a chance to reflect on something you are already doing but might want to keep doing or do more as well as recognizing something you don’t want to do or want to stop doing (maybe its having negative thoughts, or you want to stop working for someone else!?!?)
The list above is a good jumping off point if you need some ideas of what to consider when making goals for the new year. Goals can be big or small: you can change careers or make a valiant effort to remember to take the trash out the night before pick-up.
SMART goal
There is also a technique that reminds us to make SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. So you can take a specific goal like “I want to exercise more” and make it specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely by adding more details like what type of exercise, how frequently and for how long and ultimately, for what purpose (health, mental wellness, lose weight, etc). So, the goal then becomes “I want to ride my bike 30 minutes, three times a week to stay healthy.”
A lot of the goals listed in the image above definitely need to have the SMART method applied to make them doable. Like so much, we need to break things down into actionable steps. Then reward ourselves with XP and Loot for doing it!
My plan
I think new year’s planning and goal setting can give us a sense of control of our lives when we don’t always feel like we have it anywhere else but in the pages of our journal. I also think this year end/new year assessment allows us a chance to think about our big picture plans. I often see those planners with all the monthly goal, weekly goal, year goal pages and I find it so intimidating. I am not planning to run for city council or launch a tech start-up. My goals are always small but they can be meaningful to me. Here are a few that I am putting in my list:
- repot and fertilize all my house plants (spring) (vitality)
- swatch all my ink samples (need to break this down into monthly or weekly goals) (insight or dexterity)
- design XX new stickers/stamps per month or quarter (dexterity)
- finish some of my UFOs (“unfinished objects” knitting projects) (insight)
- read a lot of books (insight)
- exercise more regularly (vitality)
- schedule regular meet-ups with friends (charisma)
I need to apply some of the SMART goal metrics to some of the goals listed above but I think this is a good start. Time to get my journal out and start getting this all written down!
How are you planning for 2025? Please share your suggestions and goals in the comments!
