#356: 12 Chances for Personal Growth in 2025: Inspirational New Year's Resolutions & Monthly Goals

Yes, this means a fresh new start every month of the year.

My friend, this is for you if you want to make 2025 the best year of your entire life.

And we're going to do so by implementing micro resolutions.

It's all inside of today's episode. I welcome you to episode 356.

Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you are listening to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

What's up, my friend, and welcome to the podcast. If you are new here, well, welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration. It's a pleasure to have you.

And of course, if you are a returning listener, well, welcome back and Happy New Year.

It is indeed the year 2025.

I don't know about you, but that just sounds almost sci-fi-like.

Never did I really think we would be in a year of 2025.

And yet, here we are. We don't have flying cars. We're not living like the Jetsons.

Instead, life just kind of seems rather normal.

Maybe that's a good thing after all. But today, my friend, I'm talking about the infamous New Year's resolution, the thing that everybody is excited to make on December 31st.

As the clock strikes midnight, as the ball drops in Times Square, it's all part of the experience.

Everybody clinks a glass of champagne, cheering to the new year.

Everybody declares their new year's resolution.

Well, me, my friend, I like to do things differently.

I decide to go against the grain, otherwise known as flipping the script.

And today, we're flipping the script on the typical New Year's resolution.

And the reason we're doing so is because if we face reality, New Year's resolutions are notorious with one thing, and that is failure.

Yes, by February, we've completely forgot what our New Year's resolution even is.

Midway through January, we've already fell off the boat.

So, why are we all so hooked on making these New Year's resolutions each and every year if we know that 99.9% of the time they don't work out? They fail.

They certainly aren't still relatable to our life come December of the following year. No way.

So, today, my friend, I'm going to introduce you to a new concept, something I'm calling micro-resolutions.

Instead of us making one giant big resolution for the entire year, something we already know doesn't work.

We are instead going to break this year down into 12 individual months.

Yes, my friend, we're taking this year month by month. And here is what is cool about this idea.

Is we all crave the chance at a new beginning, a fresh start.

How many times do we put off starting something new until that infamous January 1st?

Well, my friend, this means you no longer have to wait till January 1st.

You just have to wait till the first of the next month.

If you give me the next few minutes of your time, I'm going to explain this further.

Have you understanding why I'm thinking that micro resolutions is the way to go? And most importantly, I'm going to give you some tips for how you can actually implement this into your life starting today.

Four reasons as to why I myself am adopting this new way of resolutions, and I hope you will do the same, starts with number one.

It's much easier to stay dedicated to a short-time goal.

365 days versus 30 days? Yeah, I'll take the 30 days every day of the week.

If you have something new you want to start, a new habit you want to adopt, it's much easier for you to say, for the next 30 days, I'm going to do this, than it is for you to dare think that over the entire next year, you're going to do this one thing.

My second reason is what I said earlier.

It's the chance at a new start, a fresh start. We get that not once a year.

Once a month, 12 times a year. So what this means is you no longer have to feel like you're behind.

You no longer have to feel like you missed your opportunity because January 1st is long gone.

No, my friend, all you have to do is wait for the first and therefore you can kick it into gear.

My third reason why is because life is crazy and rarely does it go the way that any of us think.

At least that's the case for my own life.

And so the cool thing about this idea is that you can rest assured knowing that you can have some big goals this year.

You can actually make some big headway in your life, but you're not stuck with the one single goal that you made on December 31st.

No, instead, you get to adjust each and every month. You get to switch your focus or stay the course.

It's part of the beauty of micro resolutions. For example, maybe you are really wanting to focus on your health in January.

So you decide, you know what? I'm going to do the keto diet.

Awesome. Do it for a month. At the end of January, assess the situation.

Are you happy with how it's going?

Awesome. Go ahead and continue it into February. Or maybe you're like, you know what? I miss fruit way too much to be on a ketogenic diet.

So therefore, you ditch it. It's fine.

Every month is an experiment. Every month is you trying something new in pursuit of the goals you have for your life.

And my fourth reason why I'm encouraging us all to adopt these 12 little resolutions throughout the year is that this eliminates the pressure we put on ourselves.

We call ourselves a failure.

We beat ourselves up. We are our own worst critic.

So you no longer have to continue to beat yourself up that you stop pursuing your goal in January.

You hadn't even made it a full month. No, my friend, we're breaking it down into small little steps.

If January's resolution doesn't work out by halfway through, that's all right.

It's perfectly fine. All that means, honestly, is that you're just getting to understand a little bit more about you.

And what you actually really want out of life.

So hopefully those four reasons are enough for you to think, you know what, I think Kevin's on to something.

So if that is the case, but how do we actually implement this idea?

First step is to think big, broad picture.

Even though we're breaking the year down month by month, even though we're not getting ahead of ourselves, we do want to have an idea in our head as to where we're going.

Who do you want to be by December of this year? What do you want to have done, accomplished?

If you were to sit down and write a letter to yourself today, you write it as if it's already December of 2025.

What do you hope that you can tell yourself of today that you did this year?

Go ahead and dream a little, think a little, and get that big picture idea, because that's going to be important as we begin to focus, to break it down month by month.

Second step, you do not assign a resolution to each month of the year starting today.

As I said, this is something that is going to adjust as you go.

So some people, when researching for today's topic, I actually found that some other people have talked about this same idea.

Probably not so surprising. But what I found weird was is that they suggested going ahead and naming out each month of, you know, February is the month that I'm going to try dating online.

You know, March is the month I'm going to start getting outside more.

And yet they've barely even started January.

Instead, my friend, I'm not encouraging you to plan far ahead like that at all.

I want you to just focus on this month, on this resolution.

When January is coming to an end, then I want you to start to think about February.

One month at a time. That's all we're focusing on.

The third step is to understand that the kind of resolutions I'm talking about don't have to be what you maybe ordinarily think of.

It may be a goal that you have, or maybe it's just a theme, a feeling, or a motto, a single word, something to represent the month.

For example, my resolution for January is a theme, reset and recharge.

That is my theme for January. I have no idea what February will be because, as I said, we're focusing one month at a time. So what I want you to understand here is that you don't have to follow some type of rigid rules.

The only rules are your own rules.

If you want this year to be assigned to a single word, to a motto, a theme, whatever it is, you get to choose.

Remember, this is not your typical New Year's resolution.

My fourth tip is to remember to start small. These are micro resolutions.

Break things down step by step. Just focus on one little thing each month.

If you start getting too big, then you're going to overwhelm yourself and you're going to defeat the entire purpose of what we are doing today.

And lastly, the best thing that might happen is that at the end of the month, you don't like what you just did that month, that you didn't keep up with your goal.

This, my friend, is a bonus. I mentioned it earlier because I believe if we start to view failure in a different light, we really just understand that it just means that we can cross some things off the list.

That didn't fit us. It didn't work for us. It wasn't the right size for us.

That is great. We're narrowing things down a little bit more to exactly what is right for you.

So, my friend, as you go through this year, if it's coming up on the end of the month and it didn't feel right, well, then simply bless and release.

As you go through the year that is 2025, I want you to remember this.

It's life. It's messy. It's crazy.

Some months are going to be good. Some months are going to be tough.

Some months you're going to wish you could repeat, and there's going to be other months that you wish you could forget about. It's just life, my friend.

And that is why here today, I am just here to encourage you to be sure that you're living and loving this life as much as you can.

If you're into goal setting, you're into making some resolutions, well, awesome. But let's just keep them small.

Let's break them down month by month, not year by year. Let's make it easy on ourselves to succeed.

So many times we seem like we set ourselves up to fail.

Instead, my friend, I'm encouraging us to set ourselves up to succeed in the year that is going to be 2025.

If today's topic resonated, if today's topic got you excited, well, my friend, share it with a friend.

Because better than doing this alone is doing it with a friend.

Get somebody else you know excited about this idea of coming up with a new year's resolution each and every month.

This is micro resolutions at its finest.

My friend, I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Remember, every Tuesday and Thursday, I release a new episode.

So be sure that you are subscribed or following the podcast on your preferred app of choice.

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And until next time, my friend, I hope you have an amazing start to 2025.

And I can't wait to spend the rest of the year with.

Music.