Setting resolutions is a wonderful habit for personal development, as it trains your mind to organize and focus future behaviors. Even if you don’t complete any of your resolutions, the process of setting them is enough to help facilitate your ability to eventually do things that matter to you and make your life better.
Setting resolutions can take many forms. The most popular is what can be called the “hard” approach, in which resolutions take the form of concrete habits or goals to add to one’s life. These resolutions often involve specific benchmarks for accomplishments in terms of easily defined frequency, result, completion date, and so on. Another one can be called the “soft” approach, and it identifies desired change in vague and gentle terms. This way, the mind is able to focus on a general direction in the present and figure out concrete actions later, at some point in the future, when future contexts are better known.
Using the soft approach, you’re invited to set some resolutions for what you want more of and less of in the near future using this worksheet download. When considering aspects of more, focus on concrete memories of what brought you fulfillment and joy in your life, particularly within the last year. When considering aspects of less, focus on your inward expectations and the pressures you impose on yourself and others. That is, what does your mind get stuck on that results in suffering?
The worksheet you’ll download will present you with opportunities to identify some soft resolutions:
- In each lighter slot on the worksheet, fill in something you want less of in the near future, perhaps things you worry about or harsh expectations you have towards yourself or others that you found to be unhelpful. As a bonus, see if you can identify the inverse of what you wrote. If you have less of what you wrote, what do you get more of?
- In each darker slot on the worksheet, fill in something you want more of in the near future, things from your past that you have wonderful memories of. Feel free to add imagery and decorative flair to make it more real and engaging for yourself.
Completing this worksheet alone is enough to begin the focusing process of your mind. You will find it easier to notice opportunities to take effective action that helps you get more/less of what you identified. Review it after a set amount of time (e.g., a year)—which of the things you identified manifested in your life naturally?
Keep this worksheet around to occasionally remind yourself of your focus, and have a wonderful adventure going forward in life!
Update #1:
A tracker to accompany this resolutions worksheet has been added to the download. Every day, consider tracking whether you’ve somehow acted on one of your resolutions in some way, either big or small. The tracker is organized for a month-long period, and will help you notice patterns in how your behaviors change over time, and incorporate what you learn from this pattern into your future choices.
For convenience, a second, numbered, version of the resolutions sheet has been added as well to help you match your resolutions to the tracker.
The worksheet is available for free, although a small contribution to help cover the time we spend designing and developing these materials would be very appreciated!
- Please select an option below to download.
- If you choose the free option, our download manager will ask you to add the item to a cart, but don’t worry! You will not be charged to download it.
- If you choose to contribute, you will be directed to payment through PayPal, to an account that ends with @2lch.com—please don’t worry that it doesn’t say @thelucubrators.com, 2LCH is the design and development company that sponsors these worksheets!
- If you download the worksheet for free, and end up really liking it, feel free to come back again to re-download it with a contribution.