This is the year where everything can be different. This is the year where you can completely change your life. Every aspect of it.
This is the year where you can become the best version of yourself. Here is how in six simple steps:
1. Evaluate Your Life
Radical change starts with radical self-awareness. You need to know where you stand before you can get better.
Here is a list of 12 areas of life. Go through the list and rate each area of your life on a scale from 1 (really, really bad) to 10 (couldn’t be better) — plus state the reason for your rating. This will help you get super clear on your status quo.
Health & Fitness
Intellectual Life
Emotional Life
Character
Spirituality
Love Relationship
Family
Social Life
Financial
Career
Quality of Life
Life Vision
Here are a few examples:
Family Rating = 7
Reason: I have a great relationship with my mum, dad, and brother. However, I am currently living abroad so I don’t see them as often as I want to.
Career Rating = 4
Reason: I make good money but I don’t enjoy my job and I want to start my own business instead.
Health & Fitness Rating = 4
Reason: I am generally healthy and I don’t have any chronic issues. However, I am not working regularly and I really want to lose some weight.
2. Create Your Vision
Write down what a 10 would look like for you in each area of your life. Take some time to think about what you truly want and allow yourself to dream up anything — no holding back.
It’s best to do this exercise when you are in a relaxed and inspired state so you can deeply connect to your vision without being clouded by your habitual thinking patterns. For example, on a Saturday morning in your favourite coffee shop.
Here is an example:
Health: I am a picture of perfect health. I look toned, slim and my skin glows. I am brimming with energy & joy. I eat what is good for my body. I work out 4–5 times a week because it makes me feel great.
Now, ask yourself why you want that perfect 10. What about it is important to you? This step is vital because getting clear on your why challenges your motivation and reveals your true desires.
When I asked myself “Why do I want to start my own business?”, I uncovered the real drive behind my goal: I wanted to be my own boss so I could work on whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and from wherever I wanted. In short: Freedom was my ultimate aim.
Knowing your why is important because it assures you that you are going after the right goal. Moreover, connecting with your why on a daily basis motivates you to stick with your goals.
3. Remove the Mental Blocks Holding You Back
Now that you know the status quo and have defined your vision, let’s focus on the gap: Go through each area of your life and compare your ideal state with your current rating. Then, brainstorm everything that is holding you back from achieving a perfect 10.
Simply complete the following sentence: “I can’t get to a 10 because…”
Here is an example:
Ideal State for Career: I run my own business and I love what I do every day. I am free to decide when, where and how I work. I regularly work from home, take Pilates classes in the middle of the day or travel the world while working on my laptop. I love it!
The Gap: I can’t start my own business because I don’t think I can find something that I really love doing, I won’t make enough money to sustain myself, I cannot quit my current job because my boss needs me, etc.
At the end of this exercise, you should have a long list of reasons why you can’t achieve your goals. These are the stories you are telling yourself — and they are holding you back from achieving your vision.
Now Change the Story
Here are 3 powerful ways to change the stories you are telling yourself and free yourself from the mental blocks creating the gap between where you are and where you want to be:
Step 1: Question Your story
Ask yourself “Is this really a valid reason for why I can’t achieve my goal?” Here is an example: Not being able to quit my job because I told myself that my boss needed me was just a stupid excuse. After all, people quit their jobs all the time (or get pregnant or sick!) so it’s not the end of the world if he needs to find a replacement for my role.
As you can see, if you question yourself this way, you will be able to eliminate the reasons that are simply lame excuses. Sometimes all it takes to remove a mental block is to realize that the story you’ve been telling yourself is actually not true. If you still feel blocked, move on to Step 2.
Step 2: Rewrite Your Story
Go through your reasons one by one and write down an empowering story instead. Here is an example:
Old Story: “I can’t start my own business because I won’t make enough money to sustain myself!”
New Story: “I have all the tools, skills and resources I need to start my own business and make it a success.”
Step 3: Reprogram Your Brain
Sometimes it’s enough to simply become aware of the story you are telling yourself and consciously write down a different version of it. But sometimes, it takes a little more work to change the subconscious programming in your brain.
After all, you’ve told yourself that story over and over again (consciously or unconsciously) and since the brain learns through repetition, you’ve created a very strong neural pathway for it which makes it difficult to think and act differently.
Thus, you will need to keep repeating the new story to yourself until the neural pathways in your brain have changed. Daily affirmations, tapping and hypnosis are powerful tools to reprogram your mind for good.
4. Set Your Goals & Create Your Action Plan
Once you are clear on your vision and have removed the mental blocks holding you back, it’s time to create your action plan for achieving your goals.
To create an effective goal achievement plan, make sure to follow these guidelines:
Focus on 3 main goals
Even though you’ve defined your vision for all areas of your life in Step 2, when it comes to actual goal setting, it’s important to prioritize ruthlessly. You can do anything, but you can’t do everything. Setting too many goals is a great recipe for failure.
But the good news is: all areas of life are interrelated and thus working on improving one area can positively impact other areas as well. Great goals are the ones that catch two birds with one stone. Starting a side business, for instance, will increase your fulfilment and help you make extra income just as and exercising daily will help you lose weight and increase your energy and performance at work.
Be specific
To set goals the right way, make sure you answer the 3 W’s: What do you want to achieve? By when do you want to achieve it? Why is this goal important to you? Having 100% clarity about what exactly you want to achieve is crucial to success.
Be realistic
Great goals are inspiring but not overwhelming. Setting your bar too low will fail to motivate you to take action, on the other hand, too ambitious goals quickly lead to demotivation.
Break them down into actionable steps
“Write a book” is a great goal, but it’s not actionable and thus will cause you to procrastinate due to a lack of clarity and overwhelm. Great goal achievement plans include specific action steps to achieve your goal.
For example:
Create an outline for the book
Do research for chapter 1
Write draft for chapter 1
Edit chapter 1
Send chapter 1 to a friend for feedback
Focus on building habits
Most goals can not only be broken down into action steps but attached to daily or weekly habits. For example, if you want to lose weight helpful habits could be working out 3 times a week and planning and preparing healthy lunchboxes every Sunday.
But even if your goal doesn’t include recurring items in your week, you can still make a habit out of working on your goal. For example, spend every Saturday morning working on your side business in a coffee shop.
Include a strategy to measure your progress
Whether it’s weighing yourself every week, tracking your habits with an app or reviewing the progress for a project at work once a week with your boss — great action plans make sure that you stay on track by regularly reviewing your progress.
5. Spend Your Time According to Your Goals
“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” — F.M. Alexander
How you spend your typical day is a reflection of your priorities. Your vision, goals and grand intentions don’t matter if you don’t put your money where your mouth is — or in this case if you don’t put your time where your mouth is.
Each of us has the same 24 hrs each day. What matters is how we spend the limited time that we have.
I work with a lot of new coaches that struggle to get clients for their business. When they come to me, I ask them a simple question that usually explains immediately why they don’t have any clients:
“How much time have you spend last week actively trying to get clients? How much time have you spend in calls, at networking events and reaching out to people via email?”
When you are behind on your goals, the reason is often that simple: You don’t put in the time. Your true priorities lie somewhere else.
There are 2 key things you can do to change that:
1. Plan your week according to your goals
Sit down each Sunday to review your goals and assign timeslots in your calendar for working on them. Your “goal time” should be the first thing you schedule into your calendar — before any meetings, social events and errands.
I recommend creating a default weekly schedule with fixed timeslots for your most important habits — e.g. morning run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7:00 am, blocked time for your side business on Saturday mornings and quality time with your partner on Sundays (you can download my weekly schedule template here).
2. Spend your morning on your most important tasks
The morning is a prime time for working on your goals because you still have all your energy and mental focus. Don’t waste these precious hours — block some time to knock out the things that will get you closer to your goals, whether it’s hitting the gym before work, spending an hour reading in bed instead of scrolling Instagram or working on an important project in the office.
If you spend your mornings wisely, you will consistently move closer to your goals no matter how busy your day is.
6. Make Your Success Inevitable With Success Triggers
“If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.“— Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
Our daily lives are full of triggers that activate certain behaviours in us. In fact, research shows that the neurological loop at the core of every habit consists of 3 elements: the cue, the routine and the reward.
All of our habits, both good ones and bad ones, start with a cue.
Here are a few examples:
A notification on your phone reminds you that you have a meeting in a couple of minutes, so you get up and make your way to the conference room.
Hanging out with a certain group of friends triggers you to drink alcohol, even though you normally don’t.
Coming home after work triggers you to turn on Netflix and open a can of beer.
Because these triggers are so powerful, it’s crucial to engineer them in a way that will help you achieve your goals rather than derail your progress. This means eliminating unhelpful triggers from your life, as well as proactively integrating success triggers.
Removing negative triggers is usually about optimizing your environment and avoiding certain situations.
Here are a few ways to remove negative triggers:
Remove triggers from your home and work environment (e.g. don’t keep sweets in the house, cancel your Netflix subscription, leave your phone in the locker when you are studying for an exam in the library).
Stop hanging out with people that trigger unwanted behaviour in you.
Don’t attend buffet dinners if you know it will cause you to overeat.
If you can’t avoid certain situations, prepare yourself mentally for the situation by locking in your course of action in advance.
For example, mentally rehearse how you will only have one plate at the buffet or what you will order and what you will say when your friends drink alcohol. This increases your chances of sticking with your goals even though you are exposed to challenging situations.
Here are a few examples for implementing more success triggers in your life:
Use your phone to create triggers through calendar events, reminders or automated actions like turning on “no-disturb” mode while you are at work or spending time with your family.
Use existing habits as a trigger for new habits you want to build. This is called habit-stacking. Here is an example: Meditate straight after you brush your teeth in the morning. Your existing habit (brushing your teeth) will act as a cue to activate your new habit (meditation) and over time, you will automatically.
Make appointments with other people to ensure you are following through on your commitments to yourself. For example, hire a personal trainer 3 times a week gym so you actually work out, invite your friends over so you will actually clean the house, meet a friend for an early dinner after work to make sure you’ll leave the office on time and get everything done.
