How to Stay Committed: A Practical Guide to Reaching Your Goals

If you’ve ever created a New Year’s Resolution, chances are, you’ve also broken one. The top of the year is infamously the time where goals are born and also where they are left to die. Somehow, many of us start off strong, full of vigor, excitement and motivation to accomplish something, but somewhere down the line, we fall off; Life takes over, things may be a little more difficult than we anticipated, we procrastinate to get the ball rolling and sometimes, shit just….happens. If you’re determined that this year is going to be different, but can feel yourself slipping into old habits, ideologies, mindsets and blockages, then here are my tips to help you stay committed to reaching your goals for 2025.

1. Make A Decision

The first and most important step to take is to make a decision. That may seem incredibly obvious, but don’t underestimate the power of specificity. Make a decision on what it is you want to accomplish, but don’t get too caught up in how it will be done. Allow yourself to dream as big as you dare, but make the decision that THIS is what you’re going to do. In the book “Hidden Power: How to Unleash the Power of the Subconscious Mind,” Author James K. Van Fleet suggests acting as if you cannot fail. So when setting your goals, don’t limit yourself.

Make It Happen

Making a decision is the most underrated step in accomplishing your goals.

2. Break Your Goals Up Into Bite Sized Tasks

Once you’ve decided on what you want to do, it’s time to get to work. To avoid being swallowed by the enormity of your goal, break it into smaller bite-sized tasks to complete over a shorter period of time. If you want to write a book, for example, figure out the steps you will need to take to complete the project and then, divide those steps into small, easily attainable goals. It may look something like this: Step 1: Decide what your book or story is going to be about. Step 2: Decide who the characters will be in your story. Step 3: Create a rough outline or journey map for your story. Step 4: Write Chapter 1 and so on and so forth. Break your larger goal into much smaller goals to help you stay committed to finishing your project.

3. Create Daily To-Do Lists

Now that we’ve broken our larger goals into smaller more easily attainable goals, let’s take it a step further and make daily to-do lists to help us accomplish those smaller wins. A to-do list is my favorite thing in the world to help me stay organized and to track what I’ve actually achieved in a day. One of the things to be careful of with to-do lists is giving yourself TOO many things to do in a single day and then getting discouraged that you weren’t able to complete the tasks. Don’t overwhelm your to-do lists with a thousand assignments. You want to make sure that you’re setting yourself up for success. So be mindful of the load you put on yourself. And remember, you can always come back to your list and finish things up the next day.

4. Dedicate Time To Your Goals

One of the most game-changing tips I can offer for staying on track to accomplish your goals is to dedicate time to do the work. This is super important because life has a tendency to life. This means that unless you intentionally set aside time to work on a specific thing, you’ll almost always find other things to do and to occupy your mind. So make a point to devote a set amount of time to your goals. One of my biggest goals is to publish the Cosmic Gateways Tarot and I set aside Sundays to work on it. Every Sunday, I share the process live on YouTube. This holds me accountable for sticking to the plan of working on the deck on my specified day. And even if I only spend THAT time, on the live stream, working on the Cosmic Gateways Tarot, then I am still making progress toward completing the larger goal. This helps me to practice being disciplined and also works double duty in sharing the process with people who are interested in the project.

The time you choose to devote doesn’t have to be a whole day, it can be as little as 15-30 minutes a day or every other day. It can be once a week, or once a month. The main thing is that you create a schedule for yourself and you stick to it. Don’t rely on motivation, rely on your discipline and if you must, don’t be afraid to get an accountability partner. For me, the live streams function as my accountability partner because if I announce I’m going live, I should probably show up.

Act as if you cannot fail.

5. Give Yourself Grace

Next to making a to-do list, giving yourself grace along the process is extremely important for staying committed to accomplishing your goals. Things may not happen the way you envisioned, they may not happen as fast as you would like; all sorts of things can occur along the journey but remember to show yourself grace. This means not beating yourself up if the journey takes a detour. All things happen in divine timing, so if you find yourself at a standstill or an impasse, don’t be afraid to pivot. Remember, if you’re acting as if you can’t fail, then no matter what happens, you’ll always come out on top. Just ride the wave and show yourself grace along the way.

Show yourself grace by not comparing your journey to others.