The New Year is upon us. A time for fresh starts, resolutions and goal setting. If your social media feed is anything like mine, it’s filled with ads for planners, productivity hacks and how tos for meeting your goals.

I chuckle when these pop up because I’ve realized that the how is the easy part. It’s the why that’s hard.

I’ve made New Year’s resolutions before. I’ve bought fancy planners and tried my best to set SMART goals. And I always fail.

I never keep up with my resolutions of losing weight, eating less junk food or not biting my fingernails. The planner goes unused around mid-February, and I never really implement my measurable plan for achieving my goal.

Because my heart wasn’t ever really in it, and I couldn’t really remember why I had started it in the first place. A lot of us start the year with the best of intentions, but forget why we wanted to do it in the first place. Perhaps it’s because we believe we should. We see others who do and don’t want to be left behind. 

My advice to anyone making resolutions and goals? Know your why. If you’re going to put anything down on paper, make it that.

Why do you want to do this?

Is it something you truly want, or is it something you just think you should want?

Why is it worth your time and energy?

Why do this one thing and not something else?

Have solid, unshakeable answers to these questions. Because your why is your motivation. It’s the thing that keeps you going when the going gets tough. It’s what will get you out of bed in the morning. Once you know your why then you can make plans on how to achieve it.

What makes it hard is that only you can answer the question. You won’t get that from a planner or a blog post. Only you will know your why.

So as you set off to implement your resolutions this year, know your why. It’s what will really get you to where you want to go.

Happy 2018!