Dear First name / Sunday Sparker
Imagine this: It’s the new year, you are all excited about this major fresh start, and want that “New Year, New You” feeling. After all, we now know that fresh starts work, as mentioned in episode 78 of the podcast based on the book How to Change.
Two scenarios might happen in the new year:
- You spend January reviewing the past year and/or planning your goals for the new year. You work on them for three weeks at most, then Ramadan starts, and with it a whole set of new habits and priorities.
- You already spent November and December reviewing the year and planning the new year so you are ready to go on day one of the new year. You work on your habits and goals for 50(ish) days, then Ramadan begins with some good progress in your goals and lessons learned under your belt!
How awesome does scenario 2 feel?
Don’t we all want that?
It’s time to make a confession: When said I wanted to plan the new year in November and December, it felt heavy a little, and that’s me! The goals expert! So I am guessing you might feel the same. And you know what? Lately, planning goals for a whole year has not felt realistic.
Now, I plan for seasons.
Example of seasons:
- Season 1: January 1 to Ramadan
- Season 2: First work day after Al-Fiter Holiday to Al-Adha Holiday (usually lasts 70 days)
- Season 3: (tentatively, finals season): June 1 to June 30 until all family members arrive from abroad, and we officially start the summer vacation.
- Season 4: (End of August to End of November) which is, easily, my most productive time of the year.
Does that mean I stop working on all my goals in between? Probably no.
Here’s how this looks in my own calendar.
For example, since I am a Christian, Ramadan does not impact my routines that much; I even barely watch any series. It usually means a longer morning routine that usually pushes the podcast progress, and sometimes I indulge in Morning Pages journaling. So for me, season one would really end by Al-Fiter Holiday on March 20. Would it, though? When I checked the calendar again, I could see Al-Fitr holiday would be very short this time (half of it falls on a weekend, sorry folks), which means I can continue working on my goals until April 5th, Palm Sunday, when my kids start their spring break. The long spring break means season 2 will start on the first working day after spring break and last to the onset of Al-Adha Holiday.
Do you see where I am going with this?
I am negotiating with my calendar, I am consulting it, and I am thinking about my time and how it will look like in a few months.
Looking at the calendar really closely made me realize that the year starts on a Thursday! A Thursday! So perhaps, being realistic and smart goal planners means we will be truly ready to go on the 4th or 5th of January, whichever is your first working day of the year. I don’t want to rain on your New Year's parade excitement. I sometimes get so nerdy and want to start on day 1, but I truly learned and now teach this flexibility to my AYG groups.
After defining your seasons, you need to decide which habits you want to practice in the first season of the year.
How does working on your goals in November/December help you get started faster in the new year?
You use these last months of the year to try on new habits.
Like a dress or a suit you want to buy, you can test a habit now before you decide “it’s the one” to commit to in January.
See how they fit your life. Maybe they sound nice in your head, but you hate them in reality.
Working with perfectionists in my community taught me that they are particularly hard on themselves when they quit habits they have started. They feel that if they start something, they must commit to it until the end of time. What I tell them is to consider what they start as experiments.
You can decide the habits you want to track for the new year, but before you do, you try them on. If they fit nicely into your life, graduate them to New Year’s habits!
How long should you try a habit?
Jon Acuff calls this step “auditioning” your habit, and he recommends 7 to 30 days, and Anne-Maire in Tiny Experiments book agrees.
Here is how I applied this myself. In fact, my recent habits experiment is still ongoing. Someone shared on Sept 22 that there were 100 days left in the year, so I started the challenge of committing to these goals and tracking them daily on my All Year Goals (AYG) 2025 community:
- Working out 5 minutes every morning
- Writing 10 to 20 minutes daily
- Decluttering 5 minutes at least daily
- Filling journal entries for my 3 kids
Why did I choose these four goals?
- Workout: The only workout I did all year was walking, and I am barely doing that lately.
- Writing: Writing is my core work. I am a writer. Writing feeds my newsletter, my podcast and my Instagram. If I write, you will continue to hear from me.
- Decluttering: I never stopped working on decluttering in the last few years. While I was recently decluttering my old planners I discovered that it had been ongoing since 2019, although I thought I woke up to decluttering when I did what I call “The Big Purge” during the 7 weeks of quarantine in 2020. However, I had a new realization: The decluttering goal is in the chaos zone, which means I do it in bursts of energy, then leave it, then get back to it, then leave it again; it lacks consistency. I also did not want the year to end with the communal room looking like this. While there are days when I sometimes declutter other areas like a kitchen shelf or my purse and count it, the thing I want to finish by the end of this year is that room, AKA learning room, my office, and playroom.
- Kids Journal: It’s not fun to do, but I want the outcome of pages filled with memories for all three of my kids, and I needed to see progress in this goal after months of empty pages during the summer.
Here is how it is going so far:
- Workout: 53 days out of 100 days
- Writing: 40/100
- Decluttering: 29/100 (the challenging goal but it's way better than before)
- Kids Journal: 31/31 days in October and committed in November (tracking monthly as I want to do it every single day)
Your task: Choose habits you want to experiment with now, before you commit to in the new year!
Here is a list of ideas:
- Journal an answer to (What I want?) for five minutes every morning or night
- Walk 10 minutes every day
- Read a bedtime story to your kids
- Wake up without snoozing your alarm every morning
- Read before bed instead of social media scrolling
- No scrolling in the first hour of the day / No phone
- Sleep 30 minutes earlier than your current time
- Write for 15 minutes every day
- Meditate for 5 minutes each day after waking up
- Do the work checkout routine before you leave work
- Plan tomorrow, today (five minutes of setting tomorrow’s top three tasks)
- Track your expenses on an Excel sheet every day
- Stick to your nightly skincare routine
- Spend 5 minutes with your calendar every morning
- Practice gratitude: Write three things you are grateful for every day
I can’t wait to hear from you and what experiments you choose to do.
Remember, November and December are for habit experiments.
What happens after your experiment is over? You either decide that this is a habit you want to take with you into the new year, or you try on another habit that you want to adopt for the new year.
I need to say something very important here:
You need the win of one week of sticking to one habit.
You need to regain your own trust in yourself.
You need to believe yourself when you say you want to do something.
You need to keep your promises to yourself.
I know you want to do so much, but if you keep changing your plans and following every new shiny thing, you will not have anything to show for your efforts. You need a win! Especially if you have not had one for a while.
Choose a habit. Experiment for one week or one month.
This time is different.
You will keep your promise.
Stay tuned to the Sunday Spark as we talk more about goal setting!
