10 Secrets to Creating Your Best Year Yet 

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best year yet
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Step 1. Get clarity about what your best year would look like. Know what outcomes you want and what you don’t want. Start with “what matters most” so that you can say yes to that and no to everything else. We will always have more goals, wants, and desires than time to reach them. The key to success is making choices about which goals to commit to — and then making a 100 percent commitment to those. Get the pen to the paper before January and start mapping out your future.   

Step 2. Goal setting is essential for success and achievement. Goal setting is the bridge between where you are now and where you want to go. Nothing will improve performance and success more than a clearly written goal, a plan to get there, and a deadline. Goal setting forces you to focus on what is most important. 

Step 3. Review and execute. After you identify your goals, schedule a weekly appointment with yourself to check in on progress. Focus on what matters most by setting up ironclad boundaries so you are not interrupted by the tyranny of the urgent.

Step 4. Review your successes and failures. Build on your successes and learn from your failures. “What Worked, What Didn’t, What’s Next?” The key is to evaluate often — objectively — and then move on. Looking at what happened with a healthy degree of detachment allows us to make better decisions.

Step 5. Focus on the present. Remember, input equals output so be sure you’re putting plenty of good stuff in. Life is lived out one moment at a time; it is critical to develop the habit of living in the present moment with an upward view of your bigger future.  

Step 6. Stop living out of your inbox. Plan to work on your highest payoff activities and cut or delegate your low payoff activities. Start to live your life by design and not by default and see how your motivation grows. 

Step 7. Invest in yourself. What do you want to learn, do, or become? Be specific and put these activities on your calendar to make sure they happen. Start to journal. Ask yourself daily: “What went well today? Why?” and “What did not go well today? What did you learn?” Journal about how you can change your actions to do better the next time.

Step 8. Create a Mastermind Group. Establish a personal board of directors, people whose wisdom, knowledge, and character you respect, to encourage you. Enlist the help of an experienced mentor and/or coach to help you identify where you can improve, refine your process, and focus for success. They should hold you accountable, keeping you on track and moving forward. 

Step 9. Take ownership of your attitude. You choose to have a positive or negative attitude about life. Develop an attitude of gratitude.

Step 10. Create a morning routine. The first hour of the day should be a power hour for you to center yourself before rushing into the day.

Goal setting is ongoing experience. Each daily goal should serve to help you realize your corresponding monthly goals. I challenge you to pause and consider how today’s goals will help you realize your life’s legacy and overall purpose. 

We can help you to get started creating your goals, find your stumbling blocks, and set up an accountability plan to keep you working on your plan all the way to success. Find more goal setting ideas at Achievable.com or contact michael@achievable.com.

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