SELF-CARE: My Top 5 Tips for Creating Your Most Successful Year Yet + FREE My Personal Compass Worksheet

I know that not everyone feels this way, but I absolutely love January!

Why?

Because no matter how incredible or challenging the past year has been, it’s a chance for me to start fresh with a new slate.

I get to think about how I want to grow over the next 12 months, what I want to accomplish, and the way I want to feel.

And when I see a new year on the calendar and 12 months stretching before me, I feel more inspired and motivated than ever. Because I know that if my heart is all in, anything is possible.

And that goes for you too!

YOU have the power to make this year as full of joy, love, purpose, and satisfaction as you want it to be. You just need to know how to deploy this power intentionally and successfully.

Because as you might know from personal experience, it’s one thing to make a New Year’s resolution or set a goal for the year. But it’s another thing to actually succeed in achieving your goal or creating the change in your life that you set out to accomplish.

That’s why in this first post of the new year, I want to share my top 5 tips for creating your most successful year yet.

Let’s get right to it!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

• Be Open to A New Approach

 Have you ever heard the saying that you can’t do the same thing that you’ve always done and expect to get different results?

It sums up one of the main reasons why we fail to achieve a goal or make a positive change in our life.

We might really want our life to change for the better, but we often expect to achieve this change without actually doing anything differently in our lives.

For example, maybe you’ve realized that you’ve been burning yourself out every year because you keep spreading yourself too thin. So you’ve decided that this year, you want to make more time for yourself.

Where do you go wrong?

By making all of the same kinds of commitments that you did last year and expecting to somehow magically end up with more “me time.”

You might think, “Well, I volunteered with the local food bank on a weekly basis last year. So I have to do it again this year. And my kids did lots of extracurriculars on weekday evenings last year and really enjoyed them. So now I have to let them do the same activities again this year.”

This is where it’s essential to be open to taking a new approach. Specifically, it’s important to recognize that just because you did something last year doesn’t mean that you should or have to do it again this year.

Instead of volunteering at the food bank on a weekly basis again, maybe you decide to help out at just a few one-day events during the year (or even stop volunteering altogether).

And to avoid spreading yourself so thin with your kids’ extracurriculars, maybe you ask your kids to choose 1–2 activities to focus on. Or perhaps you team up with other parents to share driving duties and let go of the idea that you have to watch every single piano lesson or basketball practice.

To put it simply, the first step to achieving the goal or change you want this year is recognizing and embracing that this year truly can be different from last year.

• Figure Out What You Want

This may seem so obvious that I seem silly for even mentioning it. But from working with hundreds of clients and students over the years, I know that many people fail to create and enjoy the year they want because they don’t actually know WHAT they truly want.

That’s why before you can move on to working toward your goal or the change you want to see in your life, you need to get crystal clear on what it is that you want and why.

Now, you might think, “Well, I know that I want to find a long-term romantic partner, so I already know what I want!”

And that’s great. But I’d encourage you to go deeper by asking yourself these kinds of questions:

• What kind of romantic partner are you looking for?
• What would a successful romantic relationship look like for you?
• How would being in a successful romantic relationship make you feel?
• Why is it important for you to be in a romantic relationship?

It’s by really understanding what specifically you want and why you want it that you’ll be able to successfully achieve what you want or create the change that you want (instead of achieving a different goal or unsuccessfully changing your life).

What if you know that you want this year to be different, but you don’t really know what specific goal or change you want to achieve? You can use a similar reflection exercise, but you’ll probably need to start by asking yourself more general questions like these:

• What’s important to you?
• What did you like about last year?
• What did you dislike about last year?
• What are your passions?
• What makes you happy?
• What excites you?
• What do you wish you could do more or experience more?

No matter what your starting point is, find time to sit down without distractions—no kids, social media, or chores—and reflect on what matters to you. Tune in to your heart and listen to what it’s telling you. Remember that your heart already knows what you want. You just need to learn how to listen to it.

• Focus On One Big Goal or Change

Another big reason why we sometimes fail to achieve the goal or change that we want is because we try to do too much at once. That’s why to give yourself a better chance at creating your best year yet, it’s helpful to focus on one big goal or change at a time.

For example, maybe you’ve identified that you want to find a romantic partner, start your own business, and become a more patient person this year. It’s great to have so many ways that you want to grow in. But if you try to pursue all of them at the same time, you run the risk of stretching yourself thin, becoming overwhelmed, and losing motivation.

Instead of trying to tackle all of these goals at once, choose one to start with. If you get to the point where you’re making steady progress toward achieving this goal and you have the time for it, you can think about simultaneously pursuing another goal.

Remember that as tempting as it can be to go after multiple major goals at once, you have a limited amount of time and energy. You’ll be more likely to succeed in achieving a goal or making a positive change in your life if you can give it the time, energy, and focus it needs to become a reality.

To help you stay focused on the goal or change that you’ve selected, you can create a vision board of it. Select visuals that represent the goal, what it means to you, and what it would be like to accomplish it. Then, place your vision board somewhere where you’ll see it on a regular basis as a reminder of what you’re focusing on this year.

• Say “Yes” To Opportunities That Align with Your Goal

This tip is essentially about putting Tip #1 and Tip #3 together. It’s all about making choices based on the big goal or change that you want to achieve this year (regardless of the choices you’ve made in previous years).

For example, let’s say that you decide to focus on starting your own business this year, and you come across the opportunity to take a course on how to start a business. You might think, “Well, I can’t take this course because it’s on Tuesday evenings and that’s when I’ve been volunteering at the food bank. They really count on me. So I guess I’ll just wait for another course that’s held at a different time.” And as a result, you end up passing on the opportunity to enroll.

In this situation, you made a choice based on what you’ve done in the past instead of based on the goal you’ve chosen to focus on. This might seem like the easy thing to do because you won’t have to disappoint the food bank by telling them that you can’t volunteer anymore. And you won’t have to deal with your fears about whether the course will be too challenging for you or you’ll fail at it. But you’ll also miss out on an opportunity that could play an essential role in helping you achieve your goal.

So if you want to create your best year yet, it’s important to not only be open to making different choices this year but to actually follow through in making these different choices. Base your choices on the goal or change that you’re focusing on this year instead of defaulting to the choices you’ve always made.

• Find Happiness in Your Journey

Before I became a therapist, I found myself constantly chasing happiness every year. I’d think, “I just need to achieve this career goal or reach this stage of my life or find the right romantic partner, and then I’ll finally be happy.”

But even if I achieved the goal, I didn’t experience the big, profound happiness I thought I would. And so I would immediately turn my attention toward the next goal in the hopes that it would be the magic answer to my happiness prayers.

You know what, though, my dear? If you take this approach this year, you probably won’t have the year you want. Because happiness doesn’t come from achieving a particular goal. It comes from enjoying the journey.

That’s why if you want to make this year your best one yet, look for happiness in your journey toward your goal, not in achieving the goal itself. Look for the meaning of it. If you’ve selected a goal that’s right for you, this should happen naturally. Because if you’re doing something that’s right for you and makes your heart sing (whether it’s starting your own business or getting back on the dating scene), you’ll find happiness in working toward the goal.

Use Authentic Intention to Create Your Best Year Yet

The beginning of a new year opens the door to an endless world of possibilities.

But the sheer number of these possibilities and the pressure to make them a reality can also be daunting.

The good news is that you don’t need talent or luck to make this year your best one yet.

Instead, you can create the year you’ve been longing for by listening to your heart, using it to guide the choices you make, and finding happiness in your journey.

Need some help with identifying what your heart is telling you?

That’s exactly why I created the My Personal Compass worksheet.

It’ll help you get clarity on your needs, desires, passions, and dreams so that you can successfully pursue the goals that are right for you and find happiness along the way.

And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and courses.

Until next time!

Vera

SHARE THIS: