Don’t be one of the many who quit their new year’s resolutions early in the year. Set yourself up for success by learning the right way to reflect and complete your goals!
What is A New Year’s Resolution anyway? Why bother with them?
Are they worth it?
Do they last?
Can you achieve them?
Will you become successful with resolutions? Or without them? What can you do instead?
This episode will explain why resolutions fail and what you should do instead to help to set yourself up for success, happiness, wealth, and fulfillment!
80% of New Year’s resolutions are broken within 6 weeks. They’ve quit. They’re done. They’re finished six weeks after they’ve started. Only six weeks 50% have quit after two weeks. So why bother? But what the heck are New Year’s resolutions anyway and why bother?
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Success Takeaways from this episode:
What Will You Learn:
- What is A New Year’s Resolution anyway?
- Why bother with them? Are they worth it?
- Do they last?
- Can you achieve them?
- Will you become successful with resolutions? Or without them?
- What can you do instead?
So the infamous New Year’s resolution conversation is upon us now.
More importantly though, right now, as we start another year.
We’ve got to notice not only a brand new year, we have a brand new decade upon us. So I think it’s more important than ever to really stop and reflect on where we’re at and where we’re going.
But here’s the thing, New Year’s resolutions, call them goals call them I’m gonnas… I’m gonna stop this, I’m gonna do that I’m going to achieve this.
Do they really work? And what is a New Year’s resolution?
Anyway, it’s so funny. Several years ago, I posted a meme, of the gym.
But it was in December, the image of a gym and maybe one or two people in it nice and quiet and, and then January hits, especially the first week, and it’s like a WWF wrestling match. There are people everywhere and bodies flying. And it’s just a massive ordeal. And it’s such an ironic thing because every single year it happens.
Health and Fitness and getting back in shape is the number one thing that people want to resolve or improve upon in the coming year. And that new year’s resolution, I’m gonna get in shape, I’m going to eat better, I’m going to look better, I want to feel better, all of these things.
That’s why gyms love it. Because that first month, especially the first three weeks, it’s really busy.
But people who regularly go to the gym, hate it because the first few weeks are so busy and packed and 90% of the time people aren’t gonna stick it out. And I’m not saying don’t go if you’ve not ever gone to the gym, and you want to go in January go by all means.
But here’s the bigger question. Why January? Why not? March? Why not? June? Why not? August, September, whatever. And I think we all know the answer. It seems very clear.
January is a new beginning. It’s a fresh start. But it doesn’t work out. I’d like you to really think about the resolutions that you’ve set. And I don’t mean this in a bigger overarching term that people are doomed to failure. I don’t mean that at all. I just mean, if we’re going to continue to succeed and push forward and really have an exceptional year and extraordinary growth, we have to take a look at a few things a new, let’s just be honest, New Year’s resolutions. They don’t work. They just don’t. 50% of people quit after the first two weeks, six weeks. So we’re talking from January to mid-February 80% have quit on those New Year’s resolutions.
So why bother? So I’d like to ask you when you sit down and think about New Year’s resolutions.
What exactly do you think about? Do you just think about this is what I want. And that’s it. Because that’s the reason why people fail, it’s not so much that they’ve set a goal, it’s that they don’t have the backup, to make it consistent, they don’t have a real plan.
That’s what I’d like to give you today is the plan. And to really show you what it takes in 2020, to have a more successful and productive year, and really, to be extraordinary, and to have extraordinary growth, and to really be able to start moving closer into that consistent, joyous, happy life that is well rounded. And all of the key areas have clarity and have success.
YEAR END REFLECTION
What, what do you do instead, instead of saying, This is my new year’s resolution, what can you do instead. And there are several ways to look at this. And I’m going to give you a couple, but the first thing is a suggestion of in December, right now is a great time to plan December historically for me has been a try to set at least two solid days to really plan for the next year. And my planning, I don’t mean aligning every single day with tasks, it’s more about a reflection period.
And the way you do it is if you can set a day or two aside, if you give yourself two or three days, it’s much more productive. Because this is a lot and it’s heavy. And to really have growth, we have to be honest with ourselves. So being true to the name of what you’re listening to right now with go reflect yourself, you really have to have a reflection period and have some honest conversations.
Tune in and as you watch or listen to this special episode. Pause every 5-10 minutes and mindfully reflect on what you just heard.
Write down your thoughts, then yawn and stretch before proceeding.
MONTHLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
So what you start with, though, is to look at each month. So right now 2019, I’m going to set aside December 27 28th, and 29th. Minimum. And what I’m gonna do is I’m going to start I’m going to get a brand new journal, and I’m going to start and I’m going to go back to January 2019, I’m going to take a look at that month, I’m going to look at my calendar, I’m going to look at my bank accounts, I’m going to take a look at the business production, the personal production, if you will, all the key areas of my life.
I’m going to start and I’m going to create a journal and an entry for each of those key areas. And I’m going to look at each month. And I’m going to say what were the successes for that month. What did I do? Well, my time, my health, my follow-up, my production, my keeping up with certain tasks that I need to keep up with.
So I might have a business category and then have a couple of things in the business category. And then I might have a personal and then a couple of things in the personal. This really is that’s why I said this reflection period.
It’s really important. Because if we want to have that ultimate fulfillment, if we want to have that harmony in all of those key areas of our lives, we have to look at them. And we have to be honest about what’s working and what’s not.
So that’s the first thing. Then, as you’re going through each month, and you’re taking a look at what you did well, I like to use different colored pencils, I couldn’t think of the wood pencils, but different colored pencils, and maybe assign a color for each one of those key areas.
And that way it’s easier to see as you’re going through. And then maybe for the, I call them opportunities for growth. Instead of looking at something as failure in January, I failed at my diet because I ate a pizza twice, which I’ll be honest, I eat pizza, at least once a week, pizza is my kryptonite. And I’m okay with that. Because I know it and I allow myself that. But I’m saying this as there’s no such thing as failures.
Approach Reflection with a Beginners Mind
There are learning opportunities, and there are questions. It’s really approaching it and saying, Why? Why did I consistently do this one thing instead of being productive? Now, this really gets into some deeper conversations and as you could probably imagine, the whole point of reflection is to ask yourself: What are your triggers? What are the things that you really, really need help with? And what are your blocks? What are the things that are blocking, and everything comes back to mindset. It just does. Whether you realize it or not, as you go through, if you really give yourself an honest chance to go through this lesson, you will find it comes back to mindset.
But as we continue on, so this is really how you do it, create that list of those key areas, color code them, get a brand new journal notebook, even if it’s just one of those yellow pads if you want to create a different yellow pad for each key area, that’s fine, too, that might be a little overwhelming. Whatever works for you, though, be creative.
This is why if you really give yourself two or three days and have fun with this, this should not be a stressful process.
It is an honest process. So take care of yourself during it, make sure you are eating well. Make sure you’re drinking enough water, make sure you’re getting some breaks and fresh air and some sunshine. Because it can be heavy.
But to really propel your success. And to really step into who you’re meant to be. This is the stuff that’s important.
And I promise you, if you start, let’s say you put this off till January 10. Then January 10, is going to come along and you haven’t done this yet. And you’re going to say well, I’ve got this to do and not to do and the kids have this event and I’ve got school and I’ve got you to know, I’m right back in the grind of work or whatever, you know it better than I do, we all can come up with excuses.
And day-to-day life just gets in the way sometimes. But if you say I’m going to put this process off, because I just don’t have time. Before you know it, it’s March before you know it, then September, and then boom, we’re at another end of the year. And we haven’t really given ourselves the space. And we haven’t given ourselves the opportunity to really go through what we need to do. And this is a passion project, if you will, this is something it’s really a gift.
Determine Key Areas to Focus
So let’s back up as you go through each month. And you say these are the things I’ve done really well. You can score it. Sometimes. I’ve done this in the past where I’ve scored things or maybe I feel like my bookkeeping for the month was an eight. And I felt pretty good about that. So I’m not really going to look at room for growth or opportunity there because I’m going to prioritize where I need to spend my future resources and energy. And that’s really what it’s about as you go through the entire year.
And you reflect on Okay, consistently. I was an eight each month for bookkeeping, that I know that yeah, there’s probably a little bit of room for improvement. And maybe it’s maybe I can get a more efficient system, or maybe the people that I have working on those things, we can tighten some things up or communication. Yes. But the whole point is to look at each of those areas and say, Okay, this particular thing.
Let’s go back to diet because that’s a very common one. And it’s important, it’s very important for us to be healthy. If we’re not healthy, we can’t give to ourselves, we can’t give to our clients. We can’t be in service of others if we’re not healthy. So let’s take a look at that. And let’s say January, we had a six we came off pretty strong, but it kind of dipped a little six isn’t bad, but there’s some room for growth. And let’s say February, we really just kind of gave up we did the normal swing and six weeks later we completely gave up. Therefore, February was a three then we kind of got frustrated and then March came and we’re like okay, Spring is coming I gotta kick it back in gear, and let’s say we gave our diet an eight.
Then we go on throughout the month. And as we can see the consistency was all over the place. And when we really look at why and that’s the next layer is say why? What did I do that month that did not serve me and set this thing up for success?
You can say these are the things that I did successfully. And these are the things I did not so maybe one month was the meal plan. Maybe one month every single Sunday you had a meal plan you went grocery shopping you made Your meals for the entire week. So you were able to have to get ahead of it. Let’s say you did that one month, but not another. Obviously, there’s your answer in there you know lies the key if you will, to be able to set yourself up for success.
Do you need a monthly meal plan?
And on that note, just kind of a sidebar, there are a lot of meal service, places meal service order places.
Green Chef or Hello Fresh is probably one of the favorite ones that I’ve used. And full disclosure, this is not an affiliate plug whatsoever, it just popped up in my head, there are a lot of the pre-made meal order types of services now. And it is very efficient, it helps a lot. But what I found, especially with HelloFresh, I really like it, it’s the menus are good, the meals, the quality is pretty good. But for me, it’s still you have to cook it. And if I’m going to be very efficient during the week, I need to bulk cook. And I do love fresh hot meals. But I don’t have time to do that every single day. So there are alternatives to that.
Just Plan Ahead A Little!
So the point is, is just a plan, the point is for you to take a look at what has served you well what things you can do. And I’m really kind of moving ahead because there are three stages to this entire process.
Step 1: Look at Each Month
The first step is to really look at each month, it’s to look at what each life area is, meaning, what are the most important priorities in your life, and just pick them your health, your success in your job, your success in your business, and then you can break those down your relationships, maybe your ability to grow spiritually, or mentally or by learning a new skill, you need to set those first and foremost, hopefully, you did this last year.
If you haven’t done it, it’s really important in this all goes back to that life priority balance of these are the major things in my life that you want to have harmony with. Because if you haven’t listened to some of my earlier podcasts, I’m a big, big, big, big believer in balance is a wasted word. Balance to me means you have to give and take in life isn’t about balance. Because in most people, when they think of balance, I think life-work balance.
And life isn’t really about that. Because work is part of us. That’s who we are. And to say that one has to give and the other has to suffer. I think that sets our minds and our success up for a little bit of inconsistency with happiness and fulfillment. And that’s the deeper goal here is to create happiness and fulfillment. So what we’re trying to accomplish is harmony.
Don’t try to balance, instead, Harmonize!
We’re trying to harmonize all of these areas of our lives, to have that fulfillment and success and joy and peace and freedom to know that they can all harmonize together. Yeah, some days, I’m going to give more to one thing than another. But that doesn’t mean that it’s suffering, it means it’s a choice. And it means that I’ve set myself up to be successful. So I’m not spending all day cooking every day, I may spend Sunday afternoon cooking, therefore other areas of my life can have my time and attention.
But that’s what this is all about is setting yourself up for success. At the beginning of the year, when you go through each of those key areas, get your journal, create color code it, make it creative.
Step 2: Learning Opportunities?
So now what we’re doing is we’re going through each month and we’re just identifying or identifying what we’ve done well, what maybe have done not so well, those opportunity areas. Now, here’s the really the kind of the pivot point, and this is the next step of creating the future.
How do we make this an amazing year? We’ve gone through each month of the year. We’ve taken a look at what’s worked, what opportunities we had, We’ve color-coded it, we’ve rated it, we’ve gone and we’ve said okay, this is the consistency. And if you really, really want to get crazy, you can create a graph and in some business planning areas, I do recommend that but for this conversation Right now we’re going to keep it simple.
Because what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to create a life that we desire. And we’re trying to set this next year up for us to be that best version of ourselves in those areas. And maybe you’ve done everything well. And you’re very happy, and you’re very content.
Challenge yourself
So maybe the question is, is what can you challenge yourself to grow further in, it’s not about looking at all these areas suck these, my life is bad. It’s not about that, whatsoever, it’s about having more, and really tapping into those resources that we all have inside of us, and saying, Okay, this is going well, now, how can I make it? Great? How can I make it extraordinary? And if you don’t know what that future version of yourself is,
That’s kind of a sidebar of this whole process. And I always recommend when I’m working with people, one on one or business owners, or even executives that feel like that they’re working on other things, this kind of becomes a sticking point.
And what I mean is, I believe that we have to take a look at that better version of ourselves. Meaning who is that we want to be? What do we want to look like? How do we want to walk, what is our confidence, all of those things, because that future version of ourselves is going to help with our daily actions, it’s going to help with our consistency, it’s going to help with our motivation.
Deciding Who You Want To Become With Determine Our Daily Actions and Help With Our Motivation
And if we really don’t know who we want to become, even if you’re perfectly content, right now, there is a better version of you in the future. And for you to get there, you have to see it a little bit. And you have to identify, and you have to say, Hey, I couldn’t be better at this or that.
Or maybe it’s just a goal you’ve always wanted to accomplish, maybe you wanted to learn the piano, or learn another language, things like that, it really can be that simple. But if you haven’t been able to take a look at that future version, now’s the time.
Seek Support From A Coach or Mentor
And if you haven’t really been able to accomplish it, and you’re struggling with that, then maybe this is one of those moments where you can seek the help of a coach, or you can really start digging in and asking yourself these questions of who do you want to become and why and what’s holding you back? And what are these mental barriers? And I’m happy to provide a complimentary 30-minute strategy call to help uncover your biggest challenges and obstacles if that would serve and be of value to you.
There are many other resources that can help you as well. But I believe this is a very important step. And the bottom line is, the bigger version of yourself, the bigger goal, the bigger who you want to be, is what’s important. And that’s what’s going to drive you. So if you’ve had issues, creating your future self, or seeing it or even believing it, this is a time to kind of sidestep and ask some of these questions and maybe get some support. Support is a different perspective, it’s an ally in your future self, to be able to have those people that have a different perspective and resources that can get you to see and tap in and have that belief.
Sometimes people don’t have the belief in themselves, and we have to borrow it from other people. And I’m happy, to believe in you or to believe in anybody if that will help you to believe in yourself more. So that’s an important step.
Reflection is all about questions. And maybe before you start going through the year, you can ask yourself these questions of yourself. Have your actions this past year been in alignment with who you want to be that bigger goal, that bigger person?
The bigger version? And if the answer is yes, that you feel that they’ve consistently been in alignment, that’s fantastic.
So now the next question would be, how can you improve? What are those things? As I said earlier when I rated one of my areas an 8. That’s not a bad number at all. In fact, it’s really good. But I still have some room for improvement. And I can think about that a little bit, I can think about what can serve that. So no matter what the number is, we can think about improvement. I fully believe that, and it’s not looking at it from that perspective isn’t saying things have been bad.
It’s just purely saying, okay, can this be more efficient? Can this take less of my stress? Can this free up my time to do something else? My mental thoughts, my joy, my freedom, whatever. These are the questions. And that’s why this whole reflection period is incredibly valuable to you, and your future. And also for the people that are around you, too.
ACTION and Alignment
Now you have gone through each month, you’ve started identifying your scoring of each key area. Now you’re starting to ask these questions, as you’re looking at the answers. You’re looking at your actions and if they have been in alignment with that bigger goal and that bigger person.
So now it’s time to look at that next year. What in the upcoming year does it take to have a more successful and productive year. We’ve got everything. We’ve got our baseline, if you will, from the prior year.
Having that awareness of what you’ve done and not done, and who you want to be, that awareness is huge. That should be a moment of clarity, that should be a moment of aha, if you will, when you have it down on paper, and black and white and even in your colors!
Believe and SHINE!
It’s very liberating to see and to show and shine a light on what is going well to be able to do more of that. To see what is not going so well, what opportunities do you have, so that it’s all about the key is all about consistent habits and belief.
Belief, really, is the key. It’s the secret. But you have to have the consistency, the competency, the confidence from consistency, to sometimes prove your belief.
You have to have habits to be able to have that consistency as well.
So here’s what you do for this new year… you do the same thing, but in a more condensed way. So you’re going to create your outline and goals on paper…I love putting it on paper first. And then you can transfer it to a digital calendar and really kind of break it down if you want, but have that bigger goal for each key area.
So you have all of the prior year outlined. Now create with each key area in the new year. The life balance wheel, my health, my relationships, my business. And if you want to segment each one of those down, that’s totally fine. You can have micro-goals inside of there.
Maybe I just want to focus on my business right now. That’s fine. But please make sure that you’ve at least looked at those other major life areas.
And giving attention to and saying, “Am I doing everything I need to have harmony?”
Because if you focus 100% on your business, I don’t care what situation you’re in right now. You’re going to feel overwhelmed, you’re going to feel guilty, you’re going to feel stressed, and all the other things, because you’re not devoting to yourself, your family, your friends, whatever.
And yes, there are clear priorities and blah, blah, blah, and we can talk about that later, or offline. But my point is, is do not, do not overlook the importance of the entire life harmony because that’s what creates ultimate fulfillment.
Okay, so what we’re doing is we’re chunking each key area down, we’re going to take, you’re going to either you’ve already identified from the past year which those key areas are. So you’re going to take a look at them and the future year. And you’re going to say, This is my new year goal for that key area.
Maybe my business is a certain dollar amount. Maybe it’s a certain title, maybe it’s a brand new business, whatever that is, you’re going to identify it. And you’re going to go through each of those areas. And you’re going to talk about what those goals are. Now the bigger picture of who you want to become. That’s everything. That’s how you feel. That’s how you walk. That’s how you talk. That’s the car you drive the house. To live in, it’s the relationships you have.
It’s the feelings, it’s what you believe. That’s what we’re really trying to create here.
But to kind of start to slice it down a little, we’re going to look at each of those key areas of our life balance, we’ll have what’s important to you. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to go through each month, and we’re going to say, January, and we’re going to say, what are the things I can do each month that will serve those key areas. So yes, this is going to take some time. Absolutely. That’s why we suggest doing at least two or three days to do this whole process.
But it sets you up for success, I promise you, if you just give it a chance, it will set you up for success that you have never been able to achieve. If you do it in this way, I promise you that. Okay, so as you go through each month, and you look at those key areas, and you identify, these are the things that can serve me best.
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Remember….What You THINK Matters.
More About The Go Reflect Yourself Podcast
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To truly have the life you want; the career, house, family, relationships, car, lifestyle, wealth, freedom, you name it….you must learn what success is and where it comes from, starting with how you think.
Welcome to The Go Reflect Yourself Podcast, where we provide 60-second brain-based strategies for your success; in all key areas of your life, including wealth, health, business, relationships, etc.
Go Reflect Yourself was created after years of being a corporate employee and an independent business owner. Throughout all of those years, I learned that no matter what level of success people had achieved, and specifically financial success, typically they were still missing something, missing true joy, well-being, and fulfillment.
I’ve spent a career helping business owners, leaders, and entrepreneurs learn the skills needed to discover their inner brilliance, and that’s how Go Reflect Yourself was born…my goal is to help as many as possible learn the necessary skills to achieve ultimate fulfillment and well-being.
I am your host, Heather J. Crider, CEO of Digital Architect Media, a high-performance strategist, neurocoach, author, search inside yourself, facilitator, and keynote speaker. (and mom!)
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