New Year’s Eve is a time for summing up and making plans. Everyone is different, as many people as there are so many opinions, which means that promises to ourselves, goals and plans should differ. Is it so?
At the end of December, we make lists of goals and make promises for the next year. Michal Ann Strahilewitz, an expert in consumer psychology and behavioral economics, believes that they can be divided into 4 categories.
1. Take care of yourself
Most often, we plan to exercise, lean on vegetables and sleep more. These are important promises: when we are healthy and well, we can care for others, succeed, and enjoy life.
2. Give more
Many plan to try their hand as a volunteer, start donating to charity, help friends more often and spend more time with family. Caring for others, firstly, is pleasant and useful for them, and secondly, it makes us happier: this is how we feel our value and get rid of stress. In addition, spending time with loved ones, we get positive emotions.
3. Get more done
Specific wording may be different: students plan to devote more time to their studies, office workers — career growth. Most of us want to earn more, pay off debts, accumulate a significant amount of money, achieve a specific ambitious goal: win an international chess tournament or complete a doctoral dissertation. This also includes the intention to spend less time online, because virtual life devours time that can be spent on achieving real goals.
4. Enjoy more
This category includes promises to travel more—or less if you’re constantly on business trips—to dance more often, to start doing something for your soul, to do what you enjoy in the company of people you like.
Whatever goals you set for yourself, it is important that they are realistic, specific and measurable, otherwise they will remain at the planning stage.
Next year, the priority of goals may change, especially if you achieve what you previously planned.
Is it worth striving to have goals from all four categories equally present on the lists? No. You decide what is your priority right now. To become happy, we strive for what we lack at the moment. Next year, the priority of goals may change, especially if you achieve what you previously planned.
When making promises to yourself, be flexible. Goals can change not only once a year, on the eve of the New Year, but also at any other time.