The Mycenaean

Setting attainable Goals

When it comes to setting goals, people tend to set extreme unattainable goals hoping that they’ll get somewhere even if they don’t reach the particular plan. Having impossible goals is a form of self-handicapping, self-sabotaging actions that people use to avoid taking responsibility for outcomes. 

Psychologists have found that we need to “blame our failures on outside forces while taking personal credit for our successes,” said Kendra Cherry, a writer for VeryWellMind.  

By setting these long-shot goals, people are setting themselves up for failure; I would say that 2020 let us down enough, so instead of putting ourselves in a place where we are not destined for success, we should try setting smaller, more attainable goals. 

When setting goals, consider these five suggestions:

• Specific: What is it that you want to accomplish?
• Measurable: how will you know when you’ve achieved your goal?
• Attainable: is it something that can be accomplished?
• Relevant: how is the goal relevant to your life at the moment?
• Time-based: when do you want to achieve your goal? 

Meditation

After a year of frustration, fear, and anxiety, we could use a sense of peace, calm, and balance; meditation gives you just that. Meditation has several benefits, including reducing stress, controlling anxiety, promotes emotional health, enhances self-awareness, improves sleep, and more. 

There are many different types of meditation, but the three most common types are mindfulness meditation, transcendental meditation, and yoga.

Mindfulness meditation allows you to be present in the moment. Mindfulness meditation “trains us to become more mindful throughout the day, particularly during difficult situations,” said David Gelles, a writer for The New York Times. 

To give mindfulness meditation a try, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZToicYcHIOU.

Transcendental meditation is a form of meditation that opens your body to a state of profound rest without needing to use concentration or effort. In this form of meditation, “you silently repeat a personally assigned mantra, such as a word, sound or phrase, in a specific way,” according to the Mayo Clinic. 

To learn more about transcendental meditation, watch this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNfenCYWGRQ. 

Movement meditation is relatively simple; in fact, all that you have to do in the name. Movement meditation is simply meditation in which you are moving. Some may find it hard to stay still while meditating; movement meditation is a great alternate.

 If you are interested in movement meditation, take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MLCf9b_OdQ.

Don’t focus on what you can’t control

2020 was a year of uncontrollable events. Therefore, going into 2021, we should not focus on what we can’t control. You can only control only two things in your life: what you think and what you do. 

While you can’t control whether or not you get the job, you can control how much time and effort you put into preparing for the interview.

 Another example would be that you can’t control what someone says about you, but you can control what you think and do about the situation. “When we focus on what we can control, we don’t worry as much about what we can’t,” said Hannah Braime, the owner of the Becoming Who You Are Blog.

 This year we should remind ourselves that we can’t control everything, and we should not let everything control us.

Last year, we went through a lot, from a global pandemic to racial unrest; experiencing this at our age is challenging and has forced us to look more deeply into ourselves.

This year should be one where we focus on ourselves and our well being. Setting attainable goals, mediating, and only focusing on what we can control are the first steps to starting the new year on the right foot.