2024: Moving from resolutions to Values, Themes, Goals and Vision Boards

So 2024 has come around, and you might be thinking “... what’s next?”

As we know, it’s common for us to want to create the annual New Year’s resolutions list. But how often have we ticked off everything on that list, and still felt accomplished if we looked back and saw that we haven’t done the 50-odd things on the list? Probably not much. 

Setting ‘resolutions’ for the New Year can be fun at the start, but may make you feel unmotivated and unaccomplished by the end due to the expectations we place on ourselves. Personally, I haven’t set New Year’s resolutions for a few years because I was tired of feeling bad about myself for not achieving the things on the list. When in fact, I had achieved a bunch of other things that weren’t on the list!

That’s not to say we shouldn’t set some expectations for ourselves! It’s only human nature for us to want to achieve things and grow. There just might be different ways of going about it.

Setting Values

One way of setting up your 2024 could be by setting values. You can start this by identifying personal values that are important to you. These can be anything such as passion, knowledge, or family — whatever is meaningful to you. You can then brainstorm how you can align these values to your actions. For instance, if knowledge is one of your values, you might think about what areas you’d like to learn more about, and how (books, podcasts, documentaries). 

Living our lives in alignment with our values can be a meaningful way to enhance self-awareness and connection to ourselves while practising authenticity and guided decision-making. 

Creating Themes

Creating themes for the year can be another great and overarching way to view the year ahead of you. Themes allow us to focus on our needs for the year in a holistic and flexible manner. 

To choose your theme, you might want to reflect on the past year and reflect on what you want to improve on, or need to focus on in the new year. Examples of this can be Financial Stability or Embracing Gratitude. Similarly to your values, once you have one or a few themes, you can brainstorm how you can incorporate them into your daily life. Some people prefer integrating themes into various aspects of their lives, while others like to keep it simple and distinct (gratitude in all areas of your life vs. spending less). 

This also allows us to adjust and shift our actions throughout the year while still striving towards the overarching themes. Let’s face it, a lot can change in a year and the actions we commit to at the start of the year may not be applicable or sustainable as we go on. Allowing yourself this flexibility mitigates the weight of high expectations, which will hopefully lead to better fulfilment. 

Setting Goals

Now, setting goals is a tricky one because you have to make them specific and achievable at the same time. I’ve found it helpful to reflect on the past year and think about what’s been helpful or positive in my life, what hasn’t been, and what I need for the upcoming year. Once you have created these goals, it’s helpful to break them down into steps.

For example, if your goal is to save a certain amount of money by the end of the year, you might want to calculate how much you need to save a month or a week. If your goal is to paint more this year, you can create a checklist of the materials you need to buy and set a weekly or monthly goal of how many paintings you will create. You can even take it a step further and make allowances or additions for yourself, such as “If I don’t save that much this month, that’s alright, what can I cut out?”, or “If I’ve created 3 paintings this week, try to paint one more”.

The key here is to recognise what you think will work for yourself, and make it achievable for you. 

You can also create affirmations related to your goals. This will take a bit of further reflection, but it can be a great way to solidify your ‘why’ and increase your motivation. To do this, you’re going to look at each goal and identify the insecurity or negative belief you have attached to that goal. For example, an insecurity of painting more could be “I’m not talented enough”. Then, you can create affirmations that are directly related to the insecurity, such as “I don’t need to be talented to create art” or “I enjoy painting and that’s more than enough”. This practice can be quite confronting, but if you’re up for it, I do implore you to reflect deeply to find those negative beliefs because they can impact us more than we realise.

You might feel silly writing out those affirmations at first, but they can be a great saving grace when you’re feeling unmotivated or having a rainy day. And who doesn’t like pick-me-ups?  

Creating a Vision Board

Although vision boards take me back to growing up in the 2000s, they’re one of my favourite ways of ‘planning’ my year. They can be a combination of setting values and goals, and creating themes. People make vision boards in lots of different ways, but I like to base it on my themes of the year. If your themes of the year are finance, friendships and personal development or self-care, you would source photos for each theme and put them on a page. Pinterest is great for finding photos as it provides an endless stream of related photos. This is where your goals come in. If one of your goals within the theme of self-care is to read more books, you would look for photos of someone reading, or a bookshelf full of books. It’s important to get as specific as possible with these photos to ensure you resonate with them. For example, if one of your goals is to buy a new car, you might want to add a photo of the car you want. If you want to deepen your existing friendships, add photos that you already have of you and your friends. One of the great things about a vision board is that you can get very personal with it. 

You can also add the affirmations you created in the goal-setting section above to your vision board. This is an easy way to read them to yourself while reflecting on the photos around them. In some ways, doing this makes me like I am living closer to the values that underpin my vision board. 

Feel free to add illustrations and drawings to your vision board to make it feel more ‘you’ — this is your chance to get creative!

Some people create their vision boards on websites like Canva and print them afterwards, while some people print the photos out and use the classic glue stick to pin them down. Others don’t even print them out — they might save it on their phone or set it as their lock screen or desktop screensaver. Whatever works for you!

You definitely don’t have to do all four of these alternatives, even one is great if you feel that it’s right for you. 

Memory Bank

This one isn’t as related to creating something at the start of the year. With a memory bank, you can create an ongoing list of your achievements, small wins, and favourite memories as they happen throughout the year. All you need to do is write down the date and what happened. A couple of examples could be “Went to see the Studio Ghibli Candlelight Orchestra with friends tonight” or “Baked banana bread for the first time today — turned out better than expected!”. 

This is a great way of acknowledging your wins and happy moments while you’re in the moment, and a great reflective practice when you’re looking back at the end of the year as it encourages gratitude and all the other warm and fuzzy feelings. I started doing this when I bought the Curation Daily Planner from Saint Belford, and I love adding to it! We often take the small moments in our lives for granted, so it can be nice to slow down and allow ourselves to celebrate the little things in life. But of course, feel free to add those big achievements too!

A photo of Saint Belford’s Memory Bank from their 2024 Curation Daily Planner.

Now I know we’re already in the second week of January, but it’s not too late to start! I would even encourage you to revisit your values, themes, goals and vision board halfway through the year to see if they’re still relevant. High expectations can be hard to grapple with, but hopefully taking smaller and more intentional steps in creating our 2024 plan will help. In a time where we’re bombarded with social media posts of everyone’s achievements, it can be a little hard to notice our own and appreciate them. But your journey is only yours to keep, so let’s keep it unique to you.

If you need assistance in navigating life goals or managing high expectations, I would love to support you through therapy. You can book an appointment with me or send an enquiry here.