If you have always had a hard time keeping your new year resolutions, you should check out that idea over at The Money Principle: define two words for the new year. That’s it, just two. It is a general theme that should help you remember what the whole thing is about, and you can include several sub-goals within them. For 2014, my two words are Me, and the World.
Me
I tend to be pretty hard on myself, and for as much as I have made progress over the past few years, there is still some room for improvement. The “ME” part of 2014 will include being nicer to myself, improving as a person, eating well, etc. I included the following goals:
Take care of myself: Eat well, run three times a week, swim (almost) every day in the lake, sleep at 9pm most nights to wake up at 6pm for a run (yes, I need 8-9 hours sleep), apply face cream and floss before bed, get haircuts and grooming more often, shop for new clothes….
Be nice to myself: Find positive things to tell myself, something I did well, some situation I handled well, and stop seeing the negative so much. Treat myself more often.
Improve myself: Read more books and not just blogs, get my little guest house off the ground, learn more about DIY, the chicken coop, and blogging.
Put myself first: Learn to say no when I don’t want to help, do favors, see you, eat pie… and stop feeling guilty about it. Like the title of this post, this is me first, then the world.
The World
Since I moved to Guatemala, I have been on the defensive a lot. I LOVE this country, is it breathtakingly beautiful, people are nice and welcoming, but a few events (like getting mugged a couple of years ago, the corruption in my village or the macho culture) have gotten to my nerves. So 2014 is the time to shift focus back to the world. Goals include:
Be nicer to people: I am tough on myself and tough on people. Compassion is not my strong suit. If I try hard to do most things myself, why should I do them for people? Because that is what human relationships are about, being kind to each other. Includes writing/communicating more with friends and family and helping them in any way I can.
Open up more: With the guest house, living in a new village, etc. that’s the perfect way to meet new people and opening up to the world. I have been shutting down lately and that is not good.
Keep giving 10% of my blogging income to education projects: So far, I have pledged $15,000 over the next three years and I want to do more for my village’s students. I am thinking computer literacy classes once I get back from Miami.
Share my projects with the world: That includes my land development project, my guest house in Guatemala, those blogs… to grow each project and make it better than last year.
Go to FinCon14? Ever since New Orleans was announced I’ve been looking at flights and part of me would love to go, although the other part does not do well with big groups and would rather stay home.
There you have it, the big picture for 2014. Can you describe your goals for the new year in just two words?
This post was featured on the Budget and Beach, Mom and Dad Money, thank you!
I love this, so much!
My two goals if I boil them down to words are probably the opposite of yours: People (others) and NZ. I’ve been away most of 2013 so 2014 is about my loved ones and my home country.
You don’t realize the good things of your country until you leave.. I imagine it’s good to be back home and you have a list of things you’ve missed to do again.
I love the idea of breaking our goals down into two words – it makes it so easy to remember your goals all the time without looking them up.
If I had to define two words, I would say “live” (enjoy life to the maximum in my last ten months in France – ski, walk, cycle, travel, play a lot of sport, generally do things I enjoy) and “work” (concentrate on expanding moneystepper, network in the PF field, teach myself new skills (SQL, HTML, etc)).
That said “live” and “work” sounds like a bit of a contradiction!! 🙂
Sure they can go together! And the 35 hour work week should help 🙂
Hey Pauline, a good one. On the ‘me’ part have you read James Altucher? I just bought Choose Youself for my son (he has a bit og ‘me’ care to do) and am reading Hoe to Be The Luckiest Person Alive. He has this ‘daily practice’ I like the sound of. As to the ‘world’ part, I really hope you make ti to New Orleans – bloggers are very understanding of the need to solitude and it is such fun. Oh, and rather selfishly, I really want to meet you after missing you in Paris as a matter of hours :).
Thanks for the recommendation, I hadn’t heard of that book. I like the second title and do believe you make your own luck. Hope we can have a been in New Orleans 🙂
I like that, nice and simple. I didn’t make many goals for this year so that I can focus on a few things well instead of a lot of things poorly.
that is much easier, and easy to remember as well. Good luck with your goals!
Stop. Complaining.
I need to learn to stop looking forward into the future all the time and enjoy the present more.
That is something I struggle with as well, looking back you can see why you did it and try to better the present and future.
Pauline- I would disagree that compassion is not your strong suit. You are very compassionate as evidenced by all you do for kids in the village. Your shortcomings are more about dealing with stupid people, and that’s an entirely different thing.
zero tolerance on stupidity! that should be a goal too haha.
Wow. Cool idea. My first word would be Others. I want to spend more time and energy focusing on both my family and the people I want to serve with my site. The other word I would probably use is Forward. As in, keep moving forward one step at a time.
That’s pretty solid, good luck Matt!
I declared 2014 the year of BUILDING WEALTH so those are my 2 words.
My theme song for the year is You Only Get What You Give by The Young Radicals. Everyone should have a theme song.
Good luck to you Jane, I don’t know that song but love the title.
This is such a wonderful post! I usually come up with resolutions every year that are so specific and then life gets in the way and I am just disappointed December 31st when I haven’t learned sign language or how to tap dance the duration of my favorite song. This year I am a little more encompassing with my ideas, with the focus on self. I need to move towards the betterment of myself and find happiness myself in order to then contribute to the lives of others. Thanks for this reminder!
That is great Erin, best of luck with your self focus.
Be nicer to people…
The world would be a much better place if everyone was just nice to each other.
Definitely. The good thing is it is pretty contagious.
I love this! What wonderful choices!
You’ve definitely given me something to think on. I want to figure out what my two words are now.
Hopefully I can make it to FinCon14! FinCon13 was incredible!
I love this Pauline! I can be very hard on myself too. I’m more compassionate with other people than I am myself, which is something I’m working on.
Pauline, I just love that you’re taking this year to focus on yourself more. This is one of my goals too this year, as I am bad at that too. Great goals – I just love ’em!
This is great Pauline. I would have to include “me” and “family” as my two goals. I need to focus on me and need to focus on my family. Everything else is not as important.
This is such a great post – I love what you’re doing for your community most of all, as well as taking care of yourself. I think mine would be calm and patience – I tend to be hard on my loved ones (i.e., lose my temper quickly with the ones I love the most, so opposite of what I should be doing), so I would really like to make changes towards that.
Reminding yourself of what you have achieved is a good way to go about your days. I should do this more. It’s especially useful when you’re in work mode as you can plan what you have to do next and feel more confident about the rate in which you can progress.
And being nicer to others needs constant reminding for us all. We all like to be friendly, but some days it’s easier than others. You could say it comes more naturally when we are honest and appreciative of ourselves.
My two words for this year: Focus and Smile.
I don’t think I’d be able to describe my goals in 2 words but you did a good job of it. If I had to, it would be family – focusing on my family is important to me and this year will be full of it. Health is another. There are many more words I’d use though.
That’s two words, and an article.
I love the simplicity of this motto. I find it more difficult to narrow my motto into 2 words than to simply come up with one.