44 habits & list ideas to help you reach your goals this year

This is the week when most of the resolutions made on New Year’s Eve about habits and goals get ditched. Were you aware that January 17th was officially Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day? Since there’s an official day for it, you know it happens often. High expectations we can’t always follow through with result in ditching well-meaning habits and changes we hoped to put into practice with the intention of making the New Year a better year. So what do we do? We try again the following year.

Resolutions versus intentions

A few years ago I decided to no longer make resolutions about new habits and goals. Instead, I’ve focused on intentions. I realized that a resolution, which is acknowledging something you want to change about yourself or your life, comes from more a negative place, while an intention focuses on what you can do to create an abundance of something you need or want in your life.

Regardless of whether your New Year focused on resolutions or intentions, there is one thing they have in common: any change you wish to create or goals you hope to reach are usually achieved only after creating new habits. The trick, obviously, is holding yourself accountable and sticking to those new habits.

Write it down to make it stick

This will be my fourth year using a bullet journal and each year I’ve switched things up when it comes to how I use my journal, what I track, or how I decorate it, and this year is no exception. In fact, I’m making the biggest change this year by going back to a simple weekly planner for my daily schedule and basic to-do lists. In contrast, my bullet journal is where I focus on big lists and projects, as well as the personal side of my daily life, habits, inspiration, goals and creativity. There’s no pressure to prep the journal pages beforehand, as I did when I included weekly and monthly layouts in the bullet journal. Instead, I decorate my daily and monthly pages with art, craft paper, stickers, washi tape or photos as I go along. So far I prefer this method and the pages better reflect my mood at the time I’m preparing them.

Keeping track of it all

There are many things you can keep track of to help you focus on new habits and reach those goals, whether in your calendar or journal or a regular notebook, left plain as the day you bought it, if that’s what you prefer. Your habits and lists can focus on personal, health, business, home, family, fun…there are no limits! Whatever and however you decide to track your progress, what’s important is that it helps you monitor your daily, weekly and monthly status, fuels you with motivation, makes you feel accomplished and continues to propel you forward. The main key is that YOU WRITE IT DOWN in order to hold yourself accountable and monitor your progress.

Moving on to the list of ideas

Here’s my list of 44 habits and lists to keep track of, many of which I use or have used during the past few years since I began bullet journaling:

Journaling

• Daily notes and thoughts
• Dream journal
• Daily/weekly/monthly to-do lists
• Monthly reflections
• Collection of special moments
• Family milestones
• Mediation journal
• Exercise/health journal
• Prayer journal

Personal Growth & Development

• Books to read
• Books read (add your rating for future reference)
• Webinar/study notes
• Podcasts to check out
• Goals list
• Goal tracker
• Learn something new list
• Mind mapping

Health and self-care

• Daily food log
• Exercise log
• Sleep patterns
• Mood tracker
• Gratitude list
• Morning routine
• Evening routine
• Healthy recipes to try

House & home

• Meal planning ideas
• Seasonal to-do lists
• Project tracker
• Budget and spending tracker
• Financial goals
• Shopping list
• Home project ideas
• Garden and yard ideas

Family/Friends/Fun

• Date night ideas
• Family & friends to stay in contact with (time passes too quickly!)
• Birthday list (add to your calendar so you don’t forget to reach out)
• Places to visit, hikes to take, local venues and events to check out
• Vacation prep and packing list

Inspiration and creativity

• Inspirational quotes
• Affirmations
• Wish list
• Daily drawings or photo collages
• Artist date ideas
• Songs to add to playlists

This is a long list, but it’s honestly a limited list of what’s possible when it comes to tracking your habits, goals and projects. If it gives you any ideas that might help you, then I’m glad and feel good about sharing. But when it comes to a journaling, habit or list practice, the main goal is to find a way that’s best suited to your needs so you can stay on track.

Putting it into practice

As I said before, I keep changing up how I track habits, goals and lists in my journals, so it will always be a work in progress. The best way to form the practice is to find a journal you like, put your name in it, maybe decorate the first page and just begin with the most important list of all…what habits and lists do you wish to keep track of during the coming months? Use that as your starting point. It doesn’t matter what your journal looks like on the inside; what matters is that it’s yours and once you figure out what works best for you, it will be extremely helpful as you work toward your goals.

Good luck!