Oh, another tip I read from yet another article on setting new year's resolution is - Don't pick the same goal over and over. If you've already picked that goal and failed, there's that feeling of failure and impossibility around it that will kind of psychologically handicap you before you even started.
Of course, if you want the same things over and over like me, ie. lose weight, get organized, exercise more, it's hard to think of anything else to pick! So what I did was just choose one to focus on this year with the caveat that if I finish earlier I'll work on another goal that I've wanted. And the thing is, the other goals didn't completely fall by the wayside. That was the big surprise for me. I'm not exercising but weight-loss wise I'm maintaining or inching slowly downward a bit.
Tri-Babe, if you find you are neglecting too many things because of focusing on one goal, then I would say maybe pick a more fundamental/basic/lower level goal. Not sure if I'm making sense but I kind of think of goals as in a pyramid. You have to get the lower level fundamentals built before you put another layer on it. Basically a hierarchy. So something like this with House and Body being the basics (sleep, eat right, maintain some order in home...) and Contribution being at the tip top:
Contribution
Culture, Fun
Social (family/friends)
School and Education
House and Body Maintenance
So for example, last year I was feeling lonely so I said, I want to make a resolution that by the end of the year, I will make 3 new friends. Well, guess, what, I failed. And my house was a shambles which contributed to my failure because I couldn't invite people over so the new budding relationships ended before they started.
So I realized first things first. I need to take care of my house first.
And that got me to realizing I run out of energy a lot so then I started focusing on taking care of my body first - eating more nutritionally, sleeping more regularly at night, and so on. Keep backing it down to where it's "breaking down" for you and make that the goal first.
For me, where it was breaking down was definitely energy - lack of it. I wanted to do the housework but I was so tired by the end of the day. So I figured out what made me sluggish food-wise and started taking vitamin and mineral supplements and that helped so that I could finally move to the next step which I'm working on now - decluttering!
P.S. I read the 2-3 areas of your life thing too, Tri-Babe and for years that worked but then suddenly it didn't anymore. So then I backed it down to 2, still didnt' work. Now I just am choosing 1 and it seems to be okay so far. I guess some years we're more capable than other years.
2,622 Days since: Inertia - decluttering every night now.