Do you want to have the best and most productive year yet? Despite the whole COVID-19 thing?
Did you already fail at your new year’s resolutions? Don’t worry we’ll help you.
We’ll never have as much time on our hands again as right now. Instead of wasting our lockdown time with Netflix let’s build something amazing! Do something amazing! Become someone amazing! 
In each misery, there is an opportunity.
We aren’t meant to waste away watching TV! So, let’s get a head start.
Turn on some epic music, grab pen and paper, and let’s get started with 5 crucial actions that will propel you into this year!
1. Set goals for the year!
I can’t mention goal setting often enough. If you have no goal, it’s like taking a boat without a captain. No destination. Ever felt lost in life? No wonder when no one is in the driver’s seat.
Don’t feel lost.
Take responsibility.
Make goals. And go where you want to go not where life pushes you! Even if it’s scary.
You can set 2 types of goals depending on what type of person you are. You can also mix them up.
- SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
- Compass goals are not specific. They are more about a feeling. A kind of lifestyle you want to achieve and the type of person you want to become. They are a guideline. You have to start behaving like the person you want to become.
Check out our great goal setting and achievement post!
Now that you as a captain know where to go, you’ll need to find a way to check whether you are on course. You have to create a working process.
2. Create a Productivity System
As important as setting a goal is, it’s equally important to create a system that lets you work towards your goal. You need to know how you will get there.
Check out our productivity system!
As James Clear said: “goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress.”
Once you have established systems and processes you automatically work towards your goal. I would go as far as to say that if you have a working system and no goal you will still grow.
Your goals are checkpoints. To validate the efficiency and suitability of your systems. Don’t focus too much on the final goal, focus on perfecting the processes.
For example:
If your goal is to lose 5kg and you achieve it with a non-sustainable diet and a non-sustainable workout routine, you will gain those 5 kgs again. And if you do not see success soon you will lose motivation.
Instead, if you focus on the process like walking daily, changing the diet. That will benefit you long-term.
As lifehacker.com stated: “When your goal is the process, you manage to hold on to your motivation longer because you’re achieving your goal every day”
The goal is your compass the System is your means of getting there.
For example:
Goal: On the 10.08.2021 you want to run and finish a 20 km marathon.
System: Every day, an hour after a healthy breakfast, you run 5km. Each Sunday you run 10km. As your stamina increases you change the system to 15km on Sundays.
One way to do so is to create a list of habits/ repetitive tasks that get you closer to your goal.
Most of the time achieving your goal doesn’t depend on major life-changing events. It’s the little things.
All your hard work, the small steps, accumulate.
100 words a day are 36.500 in a year.
Making 1 person smile a day are 365 moments you made someone smile!
The same goes for bad habits tho…
1 hour wasted on Netflix per day are 365 wasted hours!
I am not generally against TV. If you know it does you good after a long workday, I’d even recommend it. But often we use it as a means to escape and procrastinate. 
3. Break your goals into milestones!
You might easily lose track of your goals if they are too far ahead in the future. It’s also hard to track your progress.
That’s what milestones are for. Milestones are mini-goals they give you structure.
For example:
- Your goal is to do a freebie event on the 1st of October.
- Your milestones are for example to have the freebie ready by April, to have a set of rules by May, to know about the packaging by June, to do the shoutout in August.
This way you can ask yourself: Am I on time? Milestones give you the when.
4. Create actionable steps towards your goal.
After you are done with breaking your goals into milestones. You have to break your milestones into actionable steps. They give you what to do.
Usually, people write down tasks such as prepare for the spring event. This wouldn’t be an actionable task. Where would you start?
Instead use clear, short, and precise words for your actionable steps. Use verbs.
For example:
- Research 3 caterers.
- E-Mail them for an offer.
- Chose the best offer.
- Make an appointment with the 1st and 2nd best offer for a test eating (Tony’s only free on the 5th of June!)
- etc.
Fill the tasks into your calendar:
- Write down tasks that occur daily.
- Tasks that occur weekly.
- Tasks that occur monthly.
- One-time tasks.
- Activities, appointments, meetings, deadlines, obligations.
5. Create a new/ fresh work environment.
Habits are based on a cue, action, and repetition.
So, if we want to establish a new habit or unlearn a bad habit it helps to remove old cues.
For example:
Each time you got home you ate a piece of chocolate.
You keep your chocolate in a bowl on your desk. You see it (cue) you grab and eat it (action).
If you change up your environment, you can eliminate the cue.
Out of sight out of mind!
Not only is changing your environment and workspace good for your habits it’s also fun and refreshing!
- Throw out all the baggage from the last years. ( the stuff you don’t need anymore)
- Color your workspace.
- Put some candles on strategic spaces.
- Make your home your happy place. Your refuge. Your little nest.
- Declutter away. For a declutter list check out our post on decluttering.
Check out our post on decluttering!
Last but not least
on the way to your goals there are many distractions:
- Work
- Friends
- Family
- The tax declaration (god is it really time again already)
Don’t get discouraged when something doesn’t work out immediately. Don’t beat yourself up if you fail to achieve something.
Figure out what the reason was. Review your processes and try again.
Topics that could also be relevant to you:
- How to become Proactive – Create your “Proactive Personality”
- The Mindset Of Successful People
- How our Motivation is based on our needs – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid
- How to create an Action Plan + Free Template
- 18 tried techniques to improve and overcome procrastination + Free Worksheet
- How to Boost your Energy – 10 Causes of Tiredness
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Love from Germany,
Carina and Julia
