“New year, new me!” season is here and I’d bet my dime and nickel most of you are back to your same old self. I’m sure most of you reading this either think resolutions are cliche and don’t even try to make them or you do make them and don’t really follow through. A select few of you may have actually made good goals and are following through with them. For those folks, I’m proud of you, and for the rest of you, I get you!

A study done by Scranton University shows that only around 8% of people actually achieve their goals. So if you’re part of the other 92%, there’s no need to to kick yourself.

Now, I have been on this earth for a good 17 new years and have never truly made goals and followed through with them (to be fair though I didn’t really start making New Year’s resolutions until recently–I mean what 5-year-old puts actual effort into self-improvement?). Nevertheless, the last five or so years my New Year’s resolution was to work out more. That never worked out. I’m sure a lot of you have had the same experience that I’ve had.

Personal development is a grand pursuit that isn’t as easy as we sometimes make it out to be. Despite that, I’m here to tell you that you can still get your goals for 2019 on lock.

This year I spontaneously decided to make a few New Year’s goals, but I knew I had to make some weird, obscure, and fresh ones to make sure I could follow through and accomplish them.

My first goal was to learn how to juggle. I started practicing with small potatoes, which was very impractical and difficult, but I wasn’t focused on the practicality of it. In my mind juggling was a small, menial thing to learn, but after about three hours of practicing (with little actual progress) I was in too deep–there was no way I was giving up at that point. I decided I would put as much time into learning as I needed and boom–it was my first New Year’s resolution in the books!

My other resolutions were to actually learn how to belly dance and do the splits–two things I’ve been wanting to learn for a while.

What I learned after making my trifecta of resolutions is that I have the power to make goals and follow through with them. They just have to be ridiculous, yet measurable goals. If you ever want to make real progress with something, not just during “new year, new you” season, you have to make sure you can track your progress. Having an obtainable final outcome to your goal is also crucial so you can prove to yourself that you did it.

Just saying you’ll work out more or you’re going to just be a better person is probably not going to get you to make real progress. So I encourage you, no, I dare you to start working on your New Year’s resolution today!

Comment below with things you want to start working on!