141 million Americans will be setting New Year’s goals this year. Unfortunately, only 8% of us will be keeping them. What if you knew you would reach your goal? What if you were guaranteed to achieve it?
This one little word can make that happen for you. It can change your fortune in 2021 and beyond. Please use it wisely. The word is: yet.
Did you set a New Year’s goal for 2021? It’s now the 2nd week of January. Be honest…have you kept it?
Around this time of year, we can typically be categorized into 3 groups:
- Group 1: No New Year’s Goal (or resolution)
- Group 2: Set Goal but abandoned
- Group 3: Set Goal and still committed
Which group are you in? If you’re in Group 1 or 2, yet can help.
Group 1: No Goal
My assertion is that this group doesn’t set goals because they don’t believe they can achieve or deserve what they really want. Emotionally it’s easier to not set a goal and not be disappointed if you don’t reach it. Let’s be honest: life usually gets in the way.
I get it.
Our 2 million-year-old brain is designed to keep us safe. Not make us happy. We’re incredibly talented at coming up with excuses reasons for not setting a goal.
I ignored the scary idea of starting a blog for months because I was working on convincing myself that I had nothing to say. I kept telling myself, “what would I even write about?”
So I used the word yet.
“I don’t have anything to say…yet”
Then I began a list of ideas to capture topics that could pop into my head. At the time of writing this, I’m 3 months into my blogging “career.” I have written 7 posts and just counted 59 topic ideas on my list. (Most of them are bad ideas, but that’ll be a different post).
Group 2: Set Goal but Abandoned
This group was gung-ho about the New Year. Did the 2020 reflection. Got intentional and might have even written their goals down.
But then Grandma made her special dessert, and our diet goal got eaten. We slept in, and our exercise goal got snoozed.
And then, when we looked at the timeframe over which our goal was intact (no matter how short), we didn’t see enough progress to dust ourselves off, get back up and try again.
So we abandoned it.
I started this blog in Q4 of 2020 and committed to writing a post every other week for 13 weeks. It was hard. In fact, it still is. The blog researching I’ve done has said you need at least 1000 subscribers to even begin making a small dent in the universe.
At the time of writing this, I have 63 subscribers. Two of them are me, and my wife used her spam email address.
“I don’t have 1000 subscribers…yet.”
Group 3: Set Goal and still committed
This group is actually no different physically than the people in Group 1 or 2. In fact, I’ve lived in all 3.
But mentally and emotionally, this group accepts that progress takes time. Transformation is a journey. There is no arrow “straight up and to the right” in life. It’s windy, crooked, and takes unexpected twists.
So they just hang in there on their goal by using the word yet until they finally hit their target.
Yet gives us unlimited chances.
I like those odds. If we knew we’d hit the goal, wouldn’t we set it?
So, it isn’t that you haven’t reached your goal. It’s you haven’t reached your goal yet.
Which New Year’s goal can yet help you achieve?
Thank you!
Keep writing!