It would
have probably made more sense to write this blog back in early January, but as
I am an excellent procrastinator it took until now to publish it.
At the
start of the new year, there are tons and tons of posts
about New Year’s Resolutions all over social media- from companies cashing in on the ‘New Year, New
Me’ tag line to articles about how making resolutions at the beginning of the year are
fundamentally wrong etc. Whether people are making them or not, it is still
massively talked about every January.
However, instead of making
New Year’s Resolution the traditional way, I have been writing a yearly to-do
list. It is not a revolutionary concept,
but these yearly to-do lists have made such a difference to my outlook on life,
especially this year. While 2016 was one of the best years of my life, it
didn’t end so well and so this year started with a lot of negative emotions.
Coupled with the fact that I had no job prospects and no idea what I was going
to do this year, I felt incredibly demotivated.
Although, once I had put together my to-do list, I felt like I had the smallest bit of
direction for this year. The list included things such as volunteer somewhere, complete
a charity run, go travelling and pass my driving test (yes, it is embarrassing
that I haven’t even attempted a test). Specifying what I needed to do with my
year gave me much better direction than ‘be more active’. Stating that I needed
to join a dance class and complete another charity run provided a much easier
way of measuring whether I have been successful. Instead of saying that I needed
to work hard this year, I would write that I need to volunteer and find a
full-time job. When I then manage to tick both off, I can prove to myself that
I really did put in effort this year.
Wanting to
cross things off my to-do list is also a massive motivator. Including something
as simple as ‘try something new’ now has me sitting in a class surrounded by
middle-aged people and creating pretty cool pieces of artwork. It sounds odd, but having a to-do list pushed me to work in a different country for two months last year. However, there
does come a time when crossing something off your to-do list is not a big
enough motivator to complete something. So, I found that telling friends and
family about all the things I need to complete, works to push you that little
further. Especially when they ask about how much of it you have completed on a
regular basis.
Of course,
there are massive issues with writing lists. One of the big ones is that it is
incredibly disheartening when you don’t tick everything off on the list. But
then it is about following that incredibly cheesy advice of ‘focus on the
positives’. If I don’t manage to complete everything on my list this year, I
can still be proud of the fact that I completed five out of ten things in the
first six weeks of the year- including finding a graduate job, volunteering and
joining a dance class. It is also about being relatively realistic as well. On
my 21 things to do before I am 21 list, I wrote that I needed to ‘get rid of
depression forever’. However, mental illnesses don’t quite work like that and
so that was something which was close to impossible to achieve (I am doing completely fine now).
To end
with, I am including a picture of my to-do list for this year. This is quite
personal as I normally only ever share this with close friends and family, but
perhaps posting it for the world to see may just push me to work that little
bit harder to complete it all.
Like it
says on my incredibly cheesy to-do list poster, ‘life begins at the end of your
comfort zone’.
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