I was reading a fabulous post (linked at the bottom of this post) and while the author was primarily sharing her thoughts about surviving Christmas, she also mentioned in passing an idea about how to view and plan for the new year.

I started writing a lengthy comment only to realise it was its own entire post because... it might help you too!

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Here's what Honeydue wrote:

It's important to assess the coming year with a realist outlook. One exercise I loved in therapy was making a list of things to do in 2024, which was divided in two parts: must-haves and wishlist.
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The must have, the must do more accurately, was as it sounds a small list of non-negotiable. And I do mean small. No more than three or four items are permitted on this list... So maybe you have one or two career-related items, and one or two personal items, and that's it.
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It doesn't have to be big. It just has to help keep you sane and moving forward in 2024.
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The wishlist can feature as many items as you like, but preferably, make them quantifiable, as well. For me, obviously, one goal is to sell more books. But that's an abstract goal. So it helps to give it a name, a tangible goal. To sell 100 books. Or 300. Not just "sell books".
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In so much of goal-setting and resolution-making, it helps to be precise. Not only does it help us achieve these goals, but it helps monitor that tricky social and self pressure we're prone to during this time of year. Because with an unclear goal, it's very easy to feel like you failed.
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So don't fail. Set clear goals. Set small goals, and if you achieve them by March, hell, set another small goal.

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Here's mine. (And I'd love to see yours in the comments below! 👇)

Must do's in 2024 (3-4 only):

1. Stay in meaningful, regular contact with my family and dearest friends,
2. Practise what I have learned and am learning about nervous system health and healing with Irene Lyon,
3. Take small steps to grow (and continue to maintain) my business, while imagining semi-regularly what it could become.

My wishlist for 2024:

BUSINESS:

1. Have 1000 students (or more) enrol in my self-paced, online courses by 30 June 2024.
2. Have 1000 subscribers (or more) on my email list by 30 June 2024.
3. Have 10,000 subscribers (or more) on my YouTube Channel by 31 Dec 2024.
4. Create a reasonable stable, reliable revenue of at least $2000 AUD every month or more, while keeping expenses low.

IMPORTANT: May all of these people be a reasonable ---> great match for my work such that they enjoy it and gain value from it to the degree that they're happy to stick around and willing to share my work with others.

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PLAY:

1. Participate in at least one Obstacle Course Training or Race event every month of 2024.
2. Have a healthy, awesome trip to & in Japan and be immensely grateful that we went.
3. Continue to collect new parkruns in new locations in cheap enough, easy enough ways to make it fun and sustainable; take my parkrun tourism total to 150 (globally) by 31 Dec 2024.

I'm sure there's more I could add to this list but since I have a tendency to write TOO MANY things on all my lists, I think I'll stop there.

So, how about you? What do your lists look like if you were to ponder this for a minute or three?

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This post was 100% inspired/prompted by @honeydue in her post which you can read here.