10 very easy tips to make Year 2021 work for you
The year 2020 may have been very difficult for most of us but it was also a very successful year for others.
Other than the natural misfortunes that were unavoidable, majority of these failures were as a result of the lack of proper planning and not anticipating life's eventualities and planning for them. We just get into life without planning for it.
But how can we make 2021 different and work for us?
This January should be your time for a fresh start. Setting your goals for the year is the ‘easy’ part; but we all know that the execution of our resolutions is often easier said than done.
Do you know your priorities and goals? What are you going to do now to make sure you have your best year ever?
Even though it may change throughout the year, it is important to give yourself a starting point to at least start the year on the right foot.
Here are some tips that you can use to make a plan for the new year.
1. Define your Priorities
What is your focus for the new year? Ensure that your goals are very specific... not just wild goals that are unmeasurable.
Make sure you have a clear vision of what you want and what success looks like. Your goals should be “Smart.” Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant (or Realistic), Time-bound.
Take time to list out your priorities and rank them in order of importance. Go through your list and pick your top 3-5 priorities for this season.
Now place them somewhere you can see them and review them regularly.
2. Set achievement timelines
Once you know what you want to achieve for the year, the next step is to set timelines and indicators for achieving these goals.
3. Create a Schedule
Managing your time and schedule well will be key to actually achieving your goals. So create a schedule and block out times where you will work on your goals.
Every day isn’t going to look like that but it helps you stay on track. This schedule helps you to focus and actually make more progress towards reaching your goals. Set up systems that allow you to get what you need.
4. Tracking your performance
Tracking the performance of your achievements that are undertaken during the development of an adaptation plan is very important. This can be done through indicators; daily, weekly or monthly pointers on the success of your mission. In your schedule timelines, have a column to put down your comments or report for the day, week or month.
Indicators are tools used to measure the progress of your mission and can be set for monitoring either monthly or after two months or whichever duration you feel works best for you.
They will help you know if you are making progress towards reaching your goals or not. They provide data that can be measured to show changes in your mission and will help you improve or change on areas that you feel are not working.
Indicators alert you to any needed mid-course adjustments if it is found that the programme is having unexpected difficulties or going off track. At the end of the programme, they are measured to validate the success and achievements of your mission.
5. Practice the one-a-day principle.
You cannot achieve everything in one day or in one shot but you can do something worthwhile each day. Find something worth to everyday and do it remarkably and towards your set goals.
Using the one-a-day principle will make your mission and life remarkable.
6. Expand your thinking with new experiences.
Each month for 30 days in a row, commit to doing something new that you have thought about doing, but have not done, and notice how it affects your life.
Some possibilities:
- Meditating for 20 minutes
- Visualising your goals as already complete
- Planning your next day’s schedule and prioritising to-do list before you leave work
- Doing about five things every day that forward your No. 1 goal etc
7. Be Realistic
If your goals are too audacious, you may get frustrated with lack of progress and ignore them. On the other hand, if they are too small, you are more likely to procrastinate because you will have “plenty of time to get them done.”
Settle on somewhere in the middle – just a bit more than you think you can do. Also remember that you can change your goals! They are not cast on stone. In six months you may be in a completely different place, and that’s ok!
8. Take stock and charge forward.
During the cause of your periodic evaluation and assessments, you will notice some things that did not work or set timelines that weren't met. In such circumstances, it's advisable to ask yourself if those battles are worth continuing, Why you didn’t win them, What you can do to win them and so on...
Drop those you feel are not worth the fight and perfect those you feel can help you achieve your goals for the year.
9. Lose other people’s opinions.
You might not even realize to what extent you are influenced—negatively and positively—by things and people around you. Keep record of these influences so you can eliminate the negative and increase the positive.
Quit worrying about trying to please everyone. As Bill Cosby says, “I don’t know the key to success, but I know the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
10. There’s No One-Size-Fits-All Approach.
Everyone will tell you the best way, or the right way for how to do something. There’s tons of different articles, pieces of advice and strategies about how to set your resolutions. But the truth is, you must find a process that works for you.
What works for someone else may not work for you. We are all wired differently. Think about what you know about yourself as you think about strategies.
In Conclusion
Whatever you set out to achieve, it’s going to take commitment, effort and discipline. There’s no shortcut to success.
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