I have consumed a lot of material about what people want to achieve in the new year and how they intend to achieve these things. I know I should just type ‘new year resolutions’ but I have always hated the phrase, the pressure that comes with it and the January blues that many of these ‘resolutions’ don’t make it past. 

I had the most insightful conversation with my friends this afternoon, one of them shared about reading a woman’s post on goal setting after a personal retreat with God in which she proposed treating our goals as commitments. This expounded in my heart, I had finally found the right definition and explanation for ‘new year resolutions’. 

I love that at the start of November my mind goes to reflection. I start putting together things I achieved in the year, the things I didn’t and understanding the excuses that I gave myself for not achieving them. This activity transcends into December.

What follows in December is I buy a journal for the new year, to write about the things that I will be taking with me into the new year, the things I set out to achieve that I might not complete or even do at all and new things. What I love about the end of the year is the opportunity to reflect, to take a look at what is working and what needs to be cut out. 

In my reflective state, I wrote a document highlighting the following areas that most of our lives revolve around; 

1. Spirituality 
2. Finance 
3. Personal Development 
4. Career Development 
5. Relationships

For these five areas I asked myself what I was doing right, what I was doing wrong, what I should be doing better, and built my 2020 commitments around my answers to the questions. 

What I have learnt about this process was summed up in one word this afternoon: ‘commitment’. My list of things to achieve, or goals (whatever you may choose to call it), is a commitment to do better, to take important steps that will lead me down the path of the future I have envisioned for myself, to build a future for myself. 

I wrote my final ‘commitment list’ on January 1st and talked over the list with my Accountability Partner with my sister tribe. This is the first time I am deliberately building accountability into this process and having people who will pull me up when I am down, call me out when I am slacking and get me going. 

A Commitment List is something I understand and can get behind. It is also something I look forward to working with and through this year. 

In the spirit of accountability, I will share the three things I am committing to it when it come to The Over Thinker Community.

1. To publish at least three blog posts every month. 
2. To write at least two book reviews for the Instagram account every month and post more photos (I don’t want to put a number to the photographs, let’s play it by the ear). 
3. To release Series 2 and Series 3 of the podcast before the end of the year. 

Do share what you are committing to in 2020 in the comments and again, I wish you a  Happy New Year!!!