How to Fulfill Your Activity Goals this Year

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Now that the holiday season seems to be finally winding down (why does it seem to take until mid-January for me to catch my breath?), I’m looking into the New Year.

This year, the holiday seemed very relaxed on my end. How about you? In The Activity Room, we really worked on savoring the holidays. I think I did okay doing that this year, even though it seemed hard to get in the Christmas spirit. My favorite part this year was taking a family trip to see the kids’ cousins in Colorado over break.

With the New Year here, it’s always a time that I dive into our finances, mostly for tax purposes, but it always gets me looking deeper into how we could better manage our finances and make plans for the coming year. As a family, we have a hard time planning ahead for anything, let along our spending. I know this is something we need to work on.

I’m continuing to work with SunTrust this year. The SunTrust onUp program has helped us enjoy our holiday seasons with their planning guide. Now, SunTrust OnUp is helping us make 2017 the year without financial burden. Take the SunTrust Mental Wealth Quiz here. It nailed it for my family:

“Write down one long-term savings goal. Now write down one thing you aren’t doing that you can start doing to achieve that goal.”

Have you made a New Year’s resolution? I know it’s hard to when you don’t think you’re going to stick to it anyway.

Since Hands On As We Grow started on a New Year’s Resolution, I wanted to share with you how to stick to doing activities with your kids. You can apply this to any resolution you have though, whether it’s eating healthier, getting more exercise or sticking to your financial goals.

5 steps to fulfill your New Year’s Resolution:

(and do more activities with your kids.)

1. Write down your goal and why you want to do it.
2. Display it somewhere you’ll see everyday.
3. Find an accountability partner to check in with regularly (Join The Activity Room!).
4. Carve out time in your day/week to work towards your goal (see 7 times we sneak in activities).
5. Revisit your goal.

Write it down and put it somewhere to see, every day.

Write down your goal and stick it somewhere you’ll see every day.

But even more specifically, write down the why behind your goal.

What is the major benefit that you want to achieve by doing your goal?

For example: If your goal is to do more activities with your kids, the major benefit could be to see their happy smile and see them enjoying their childhood.

Get the Free Activity Planner to help!

Find an accountability partner, commit to someone.

If you tell someone you’re doing something, you’re more likely to follow through right? You don’t want to let that person down. This is how activities stuck for us. I committed to it in public here on Hands On As We Grow, and I couldn’t let you down, so I’ve kept it up!

Same goes for your goals, if you tell someone that you’re committed to doing your goal, you’re more likely to follow through with it because what if they ask down the road?

Take it a step further and make check ins with this accountability partner. Reciprocate the accountability, is there something they want to work on that you can help motivate them?

Share with your partner on a weekly or even daily basis. What are your plans for working towards your goal, and what did you do so far to work towards your goal.

Find the time to do it!

The biggest reason resolutions don’t work is because we just don’t have time. We’re super busy, we have families, appointments and jobs to do.

In order to be successful at starting a new habit, we need to carve out time in our day, or week, to do so.

Working towards a goal isn’t done all at once. It often is just a few minutes a day. Check out this list of times in our day that we make time for activities. Can you commit to 15 minutes each day? When can you do it?

Jot down several different times of the day that will work, because there’s always bound to be the time when ‘you just don’t feel like it’, or ‘something came up’. This way, if you have another time during the day in your mind, you can adjust your schedule accordingly.

Check in with yourself.

After trying hard to achieve your goal for a month, is this something you want to continue doing? How does it make you feel?

Check in with yourself and your accountability partner. What did you achieve?

Revise your goal going forward to make it doable in the long-term.

Those 5 steps can help you fulfill any goal you’re trying to achieve. Whether it’s with doing more activities and being hands-on with your kids, or working toward a debt-free home!

This year, according to the SunTrust Mental Wealth Quiz, I need to think longer term. So, my long-term savings goal is get our kids’ college funds organized and figure out an overall plan for them. Having this done will give me piece of mind that they will be set up for a good future as best I can.

What’s your onUp financial goal?

Find tools on onUp.com to get help with planning, use their budget worksheet or savings calculator to get things sorted out. And be sure to take the SunTrust Mental Wealth Quiz to know where you’re currently standing!

from Hands On As We Grow http://ift.tt/2jvoORI