The beginning of the year is a special time of year. It’s a time when most of us reflect on the past year and take time to plan the future year. Most of us turn our focus to improving ourselves and our life by implementing new habits for the year ahead. Many resolve (create new year’s resolutions) to make positive changes in the year ahead. The fact of the matter is though that statics reveal that only 8% of people achieve their new year’s resolutions, 49% have some level of achievement, and 24% never had success achieving their new year’s resolutions.
As you know from having read this blog for any length of time, we advocate setting New Year’s Intentions and following a deliberate Goal Setting and Achievement focus. THAT is how you make your dream a reality. Over this, and the next, blog post I offer up 10 ways to greatly improve YOUR odds.
1. Assess the past year to make this year your best year ever
Take an honest look at last year. Assess the good, the bad, and the ugly. Celebrate your triumphs, learn from your mistakes, and treat any constructive criticism as valuable feedback.
2. Finish Up or Let Go to make this year your best year ever
Use January to finish any Incompletes. Of those remaining, decide which to carry forward and which to honorably “let go to move on”. Navigate to the Workshop Resources page on my website and download the handout entitled 10 Ways To Complete Before Moving Forward to get some ideas on how to create an Incompletes List of your own.
3. Put your goals in writing to make this year your best year ever
It is so, so, SO important to write down your goals! I can not tell you how many times I have forgotten of a goal I wrote down years before to later come across the list and realize … “Oh my gosh! I did that, and that, and that! Wow!” Writing down your goals (and better yet, visualizing them daily) has tremendous power. Review my last blog in this series entitled 4 Tips For Reaching Your Goals to learn more about writing down your goals.
4. Exercise to make this year your best year ever
We all know that exercise is essential for overall good health and well-being, and for us high-achievers it is an essential component of energy creation, and yet so few people do it regularly. I’ve noticed as the calendar turned to January that my health club got more crowded (which is a good thing), but unfortunately come late-February there are plenty of parking spots again as people get “too busy” to work out. Exercise is not something you “have time for”, it is something you “make time for”. So calendar your exercise time. Exercise is an investment in your health, your life, your longevity, and your productivity.
5. Build new relationships to make this year your best year ever
Make it a priority to cultivate new relationships with positive people both inside and outside of your industry. Speaker Jim Rohn reminds us that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. To get to a new level, you will likely need to expand your relationships through networking and other means. Offer to help others in any way that you can, and in exchange you will find that others become more inclined to help you however they can. Successful people know the value of a good network. They spend years building and cultivating their network, and as a result, they are presented with fruitful opportunities, and better positioned to take advantage of them as they come.
If you include these tips, along with the five tips I’ll share with you in the next post, you will be well on your way to making this year your best year ever. Please visit my resource page and download my Personal Strategic Plan template to help you organize your goals.
Continue reading goal series! Read steps 6-10 >>
