Many of us have already set our New Year’s resolutions/goals or are setting them now for this year. Of course, I also set goals for myself at the beginning of and throughout the year, and I’ve observed that in
the last two years, I have not accomplished as many as I’d like.
Upon reflection, and I’ve mentioned this before in other articles, I noticed that when I fell short of my goals, I made decisions to feel like crap. As early as in the middle of last year, I started to fear that the amount of unaccomplished goals were mounting upon one another, and when I would think of the possibility of not accomplishing something it felt like everything was going to be added to the next year, and a mountain of unaccomplished goals would collapse on me.
How Will This Year Be Different?
From an early age, I observed I had a specific skill set, and as I’ve progressed through life, I’ve accepted
and enhanced it partly through various training of alternative healing. For over 20 years, I have been 
tweaking my course in life with the expectation of a specific end result. My journey has been arduous, partly because sometimes I recognized necessary adjustments only after being far down a particular path and it took more effort to change course – small picture vs. big picture.
Last year, I started to alter the way I view my goals and accomplishments and I’ve experienced some success. What I’ve noticed about myself is that I am very ambitious without organization. I like creating a lot of lists, a list for each major goal, which I had at least 7 or more major goals for the year, with the expectation that I would accomplish them all – like a robot.
So, one question I asked myself was, “What if I decide on 1 attainable goal for the whole year?” Whoa, what?! This was almost too lack luster for me to handle. I realized I like the thrill of setting a lot of goals so I can experience the elation of completing them all. However, when I didn’t complete all of them, that ambitious part of me would crash and burn.
I will share a few successful tips I have developed so far.
Brainstorming: My Potential Goals for 2019
It’s important to understand what you want, not just for this year but period. Sometimes we overlook the big picture goals because they are not attainable in the moment. So, we create smaller, “realistic” goals to accomplish. This can be great, and it can be destructive.
Let’s just brainstorm, without judging the ideas/goals that come into your head. In my list below, I am
using previous goals I did not accomplish because they are still on my list. Don’t worry about prioritization or organization at this point.
- 60 Articles on procrastinationaffiliate.com
- Buy a house in Europe
- Buy a house in the U.S.
- Get married – don’t get me started, oh, I said not to judge.
- Grow my own micro-greens
- Lower my monthly bills by 80%
- Finish writing my interactive self-enhancement book
- Get all the tattoos I’ve been wanting
- Be completely healthy
- Complete the outline for my online course
- Publish a creative journal
Remove the “Realistic” Part of My Goals & Live Outside the Boundaries of the Possible
This is important for me moving forward. Part of the problem, in the past, was setting goals that my 
brain believed were realistic. When I didn’t accomplish them I would be up in arms, like “What’s wrong
with me… blah, blah” … etc.
Keeping my goals just outside my grasp is the way to go, for me – I can continue to strive toward something and if I don’t reach it, in the time period I said I would, then my brain says it’s okay because it’s just outside my grasp, and I don’t start developing this complex of feeling like I won’t ever reach it because how can I not reach what my mind considers a reachable goal without thinking something is wrong with me? This practice stops my mind from going down this road and keeps it occupied on the tasks at hand.
Do the Impossible
From my brainstorm list, I ultimately end up with a shorter list of goals that I can’t conceive, at the moment, of how to accomplish. This is great brain food. My brain loves being presented with problems that are not easy to solve. It will spend 24 hours/7 days a week in the foreground and background areas of itself coming up with solutions and pathways for the impossible to become the possible.
My Do the Impossible Goal for 2019
- Bring some laughter, encouragement and enhancement to at least 1,000,000,000 people.
Please feel free to leave a comment, spread a good word about my site, ask me questions and let me know what your Do the Impossible Goals are for 2019.
All the best,
TaN
Teamofone Procrastination Affiliate
Setting a Goal can be very exciting and it is a really healthy thing to do because then you have just laid a foundation. I always made a New year resolution and honestly, I never ever, not once completed them all. That became a problem just like you said, but after a while I realised that if I can’t complete so many goals in one year, why not set very few goals that I believe I will put in all the work to make sure I achieve and feel good about myself, and I have just done that this year.
One of My Goals this year is to play my music in 15 different countries and I have just knocked one off the list because I am now in Germany for a quick New year’s gig.
Hi Solomon,
This is amazing! You’ve already played a gig in Germany! Well done. You have a great start to the new year.
Thank you for sharing your journey and some of your success.
TaN
I must say that I enjoyed reading this article as it has a lot interesting stuff. We all have goals and we all should strive to achieve them in 2019. One of my biggest goals is to achieve online success and to be able to help my family with bills and to marry my girlfriend. Wishing all a happy New Year.
Hi Daniel,
You have 3 excellent goals. Once we identify our major goal(s), then the next step is organization. Let me know if you want to know more. Thank you for commenting and sharing your goals.
To your success in the new year.
TaN
Hello and thank you for this inspirational article Tan. New Year is the time all of us make new decisions about our lives, what kind of goals we will accomplish and how was our last year.
I am also like you. I like to make big goals. Without dreams, we can not get ahead. It is important to have goals that will inspire and move us, that will make us so happy waking up every morning and not just plain and general goals like loosing weight.
From my experience, goals need to be detailed and also they need to be put on the paper. This is what will make you work towards them everyday. Also, splitting your goals into many smaller and achievable goals can make a difference.
Strahinja
Hi Strahinja,
You have left another thoughtful comment. Once we move from the step of identifying our goal(s), then we move into organizing.
Thank you for your comment and to your success in the new year!
TaN
Tan,
thanks for providing some great tips on Goals. Setting goals and informations are a great booster and mostly, helps to keep us on track and to loose our focus.
Actually I never realised the importance of setting goals until I joined WA and you have to have set your goals, for anything that matter, to keep us focused.
Just one question, I don’t understand why you set impossible goals also?
Regards
Hi Shubhangi,
In short, setting an impossible goal, for me, helps me to keep my sights/focus on the bigger picture. Please let me know if you want to know more.
Thank you for sharing and your comment.
TaN
Hey TaN,
Thank you for sharing your 20 years of experience with goal setting and productivity. I too have struggled with setting many lofty goals and never following through with them. The never ending piling amount of unaccomplished goals was beyond overwhelming and put me in pits of despair.I use to wonder if there was something really wrong with me. I wondered if I lacked motivation. But then I realized it wasn’t about fixing or getting more motivation. It was about the process of enjoying what I’m doing (the endeavor if you will) and the discipline to do it everyday. That way, if I get my practice and pay my dues everyday I undoubtedly have to be further along by the end of the year.
Having a goal or a place marker is nice but it doesn’t really work for me. I get too caught up in identifying myself with succeeding in that goal and forget about everything else. Achievement doesn’t bring fulfillment but I know enjoying every step of the way will. That’s an inner thing.
By the end of this year I want to have 1,825 hours of practice with singing, playing guitar, writing, recording, and music/video production.
Thank you for a great article and a different perspective.
—Francesco
Hi Francesco,
I appreciate you sharing your experience and the goal you’ve set for yourself this year. I say it’s important for us to know ourselves because what works for one person might need to be adjusted to work for another. Life isn’t cookie cutter, and neither are our journeys.
Thank you for your comment and to your success in the new year.
TaN
I had to laugh a little reading this, as it pretty much described me. Ambitious without organization is me in a nutshell. What I’ve learned is to definitely go the attainable route not only for the year, but set an attainable goal for each day. Each new day requires a new goal. Set an attainable weekly goal, such as write three articles per week for my niche site. Maybe a good monthly goal is to just increase web traffic. Nothing crazy, but just continue to see improvement in web traffic. A good attainable quarterly goal (three months) increase sales. Small steps lead to big results. That’s basically my own 2019 goals laid out.
Hi Todd,
Your comment is great. I appreciate that you have identified what structure needs to be in place for your to succeed and you stick with it. Well done.
Thank you for sharing your goals for 2019 and to your success in the new year.
TaN
Hi there, it’s great to have goals and dream BIG! I think what works for us is all different and we should go with whatever works for us individually. I make goals (aka dreams with dates) but I do try to make them more realistic so that I can check them off when they are complete so that I do feel a sense of accomplishment and progress. I use the SMART method of goal setting (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound). For my bigger dreams, like buying a beach house, that can only come if I achieve my SMART goals, so that is more of a ‘dream board’ type item for me – something to give me motivation to achieve my goals and set more.
Thanks for sharing and I wish you a great 2019. May you achieve your goals and then some.
Hi Melissa,
I truly appreciate your comment, thank you. I agree with you and I am glad you have pointed out that it is important for us to know ourselves and to structure our workload accordingly. You have also touched on a topic I love, which is a vision board.
All the best to you and to your success in the new year.
TaN
I admire people who are organized in their plans and actions and this is what this post mean to me.
Your eleven goals listed are awesome which I think they’re realistic to you.
I’m a little confused in my mind and I will ask a clarification on the words realistic, possible and attainable. In setting goals are these words the same or they differ? Thank you for bearing with my ignorance.
Hi Abagatan,
Thanks for your comment. For clarification purposes, the first list in the article is part of a brainstorming session to identify all the things I wish to accomplish, without judgment. What comes out of this session is my Do the Impossible Goal.
To answer your question, all three words are synonymous – they basically mean the same. By the way, I welcome the questions.
To your success,
TaN
I have noticed that this year more people are talking about goals, which is a good thing. Many are offering advice, and most involve writing the goals down, what not everyone is mentioning is that holding ourselves accountable and doing this accountability exercise every little while, is more important and is probably the only way to keep us on track. Otherwise we will just be adding to our list of unaccomplished goals.
This will be my first year setting goals, i never do resolutions etc.. but I really want change this year, hope i do it right, thank you for your post 🙂 all the best of luck, hope you accomplish as much as possible 🙂
Hi Sahar,
Courage to you for deciding to set goals for 2019. I agree with you that it is important to have the appropriate milestones and deadlines.
I appreciate your comment and to your success in this new year.
TaN
Thank you for the interesting read. I too have goals on my list that seem to roll over from year to year, like the whole health thing…
I’ve set some business goals this year that one was accomplished and 2 others hit 90% the way there.
I’m a member of an affiliate marketing community and 2 of my goals there were to get 1000 followers before year’s end, which I did and the other was to become an ambassador for the platform. I came just shy of it by 3 spaces. I should have it by the end of January. I also wanted to get a website up to promote the community and, although I could have pushed it out, I decided to do it right vs get it up and fix it later. That too has been adjusted for month’s end. Although I fell short on 2 of them, I still feel I accomplished a lot as I hadn’t joined the platform until late March so what I did accomplish was done in 9 months vs a full year.
As for this year’s New goals, health is back up there, increasing my followers to 3000 is the new goal among others.
One thing I find that helps me, although is a pain to setup, is to set reminders on my phone for everything; exercising, taking my vitamins, drinking tea, popping onto the affiliate marketing platform and helping people out, even working on my web sites. I find the reminders remove the “oh, I forgot” excuse. Sadly I have something like 20 reminders that go off daily.
Once again, thank you. It’s nice to see I’m not alone in my goal quests and, more importantly, knowing I’m not the only one that misses them from time to time.
Hi Scott,
Your comment is thoughtful and helpful, thank you. I appreciate you sharing your journey and successes. Congratulations practically reaching goals at 100% last year. At this rate, you will accomplish even more this year.
You raise a good point, regarding reminders. I have a couple of reminders on my phone. I used to set them to remind me to do something. Apart from birthdays or daily appointments, now I use them to keep me encouraged. Interestingly, I’ve learned that I am particular about the way I tell myself how or when to do something.
I wish you success in this new year.
TaN
Thanks for sharing this post , I personally have never been a big goal setter until a few years ago I gave it a try while taking some Marketing training using mind maps .Personally I prefer to brain storm and set goals that are mostly obtainable. I definitely agree with setting the bar higher for some personal goals I want to achieve but I would say that 75% of the goals I set are reasonably within reach . Goals like being a better person , helping others more, getting more exercise and such is what I am referring to . Honestly at age 60 I am focusing no the simpler goals like being able to still play with my grand children, living another year with no serious health issues looming …knock on wood. So is it possible that goal setting standards change and evolve as we get older ?
Hi Rick,
Absolutely the standards in which you set your goals can evolve, not just due to age, I say, just frankly due to anything. Depending on the goal, my strategy to accomplish it might need to change, and I allow myself to be flexible to do so because my success is what matters to me.
I appreciate you sharing your experience and bringing to the forefront the reminder of adjusting something particular to fit how we do our best work.
Thank you for your comment and to your success in the new year.
TaN
My goals for 2019 is a very good article . Being able to reflect over the year that has just passed and set goals for the new year should be everyone’s agenda. This article was so encouraging to me and really giving me something to think about as far as goals setting towards this year coming.
Thank you for this wonderful article and I will be sure to spread the word about this beautiful website.
Hi Quinn,
I appreciate your comment and I’m very glad you were encouraged. I hope others will find it just as wonderful.
I wish you the best in this new year.
TaN