I love that a new year is such a great opportunity to step back and reflect on your life.
It’s a good reason to assess what’s working, and what’s not.
I’ve been doing lots of meditating on the coming year and spending time talking with friends about our vision and goals and planning for 2020.
What has been brewing for you? What does a successful year look like to you?
Even though nothing changes just because the calendar changes…
…the energy surrounding a new year is a reminder that we always have the choice to do things differently, to grow and evolve.
Here are five powerful questions to help you plan a successful year:
1. Who do I want to spend more time with?
I think one of the most important things to think about when you’re planning your year, is “who do I want to spend more time with?”.
Studies have shown that if we look at the five closest people to us, we have an average of their bank account, their mindset around health, wealth, career progression, business and entrepreneurship and life in general.
Look at the people you’re spending time with because that is your future.
There’s a great quote and I don’t know who says it, but it’s “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.”
Who you spend time with is so important. If you spend time with people that are at the same level and aren’t growing and investing in themselves and aren’t progressing, then more than likely, you’re going to stay at that level as well.
But if you think of the five people that you spend the most time with, if they are always investing in themselves, going to different courses, upgrading their knowledge, upgrading their skills, it’s going to inspire you to want to up-level too.
Do you have people in your life that are holding you to the highest standard that you can achieve?
If you think about your potential, I truly believe that you will not reach it without the right people around you.
There is so much research that proves this. If there are people around you that are depressed, you’re way more likely to get depressed. If there are people around you that are always just watching the news and have a whole lot of fear about the world, then you will inevitably start taking on their fears.
I like to plan who I spend time with very intentionally; I have a list of the people that I want to spend more time with, and I work out how to spend more time with them. Proximity equals power.
How can you spend more time with those people who are above your level and going where you want to go?
The fastest way to fast-track your success is to model other successful people and spend time with people going where you want to go.
2. What do I want to start doing?
What do I want to start doing or doing more of? If you have a look at your life, there are probably some things that you want to start.
Maybe you want to start doing Facebook Live videos, webinars, running a meetup group, coaching clients….
…or maybe you want to start a new hobby, maybe you want to take up cooking or go to a public speaking course like Toastmasters, or maybe you want to start being more punctual, like organising your time management better.
What do you want to start doing or doing more of? Maybe it’s a new hobby, maybe you need something completely new, like to go to a new country or a new city.
Maybe you need to do something MORE.
You might want to spend more time going to networking events, business courses, investing in Facebook ads.
What do you need to start doing or doing more of to be successful?
3. What do I want to stop doing?
What do you want to stop doing? For some of us, it’s bad habits, I’ve got the bad habit of searching my social media too much, and I want to create more than I consume. So that’s something I want to do less of.
Maybe you want to stop over-eating, or over-drinking, or watching too much Netflix.
Maybe you are sick of procrastinating, pretending, or spending too much on things you don’t need.
Or using certain words (like “I’ll try” or “I can’t afford it”), being late, or driving too fast.
It could be small things like leaving your clothes on the floor after a shower. Leaving the dishes until the next day.
What are those bad habits that you really want to put a line in the sand and say “It’s a new decade – I want to stop doing that” or “I want to reduce that dramatically?”
4. What do I want to invest in?
What do you want to invest in? It could time, energy, resources or money.
I highly recommend that you do a year-end review. Look at the highlights and celebrate your great decisions, achievements, and highlights – even if they’re small.
Look at what you invested in and the results of that and decide what you want to invest in next year.
I write on my blog every year a review. I write what I invested my time in and what I did business-wise, my achievements and I recap my year.
I go through my phone and I search through and I write a list of the major things I’ve done. For example, this year, I achieved my goal of writing 50 blog posts. I thought that I was going to be writing heaps of blog posts on New Year’s Eve, but I’ve done my 50, that was the goal.
When you list all your achievements, you can see all the things that you’ve done and all the things that you’ve achieved and really stop and celebrate them.
You then ask yourself what did I miss? And what do I want to invest in next year? What did I make waste time on this year?
Celebrate what you have done, but also look at what you haven’t invested enough time, energy and money into. Whether that’s people, programs, a support team, or a holiday, what do you really want to invest in?
5. What do I want to create?
What do you want to create and achieve in 2020?
I really love performance goals. I also call these ‘output commitments’. I learned this as a personal trainer. Instead of someone setting a weight goal of say 10kg, instead set a performance goal of four workouts a week, 60 sets of weights in a week and burn X number of calories and a 15km run.
Those are performance goals, you tick them off, you can feel that dopamine hit because it sets up a feedback loop of a reward system. It feels good to set smaller goals rather than I did all this stuff, but I still didn’t lose weight.
Or maybe you said I want to get five clients in the next month and you haven’t because it’s involving an external force that you can’t control. You can only control what you do, not what others do. Maybe you didn’t meet the right clients yet.
But when you set performance goals, you can say, I want to make 50 sales calls per month, or I want to make 10 sales calls a week.
Or I want to run 10 workshops, or 5 webinars. Or do 50 Facebook live videos or podcast episodes.
Those are performance goals that you can track and measure and feel good about because one of the keys to happiness and fulfillment is progress.
Tony Robbins has researched this a lot. Happiness is not just having a great life where you just sit around, eat, drink, and be merry, (which we are going to be doing over this season, no doubt!), but it’s progress.
That’s why I think it’s important to celebrate what you’ve done to and to make plans for what you want to improve next year.
Decide what achievements would make you feel really fulfilled and happy.
So to recap, the five powerful questions to help you plan a successful year are:
- Who do I want to spend more time with?
- What do I want to start doing or stop doing?
- What do I want to do more of and less of?
- What do I want to invest in?
- What do I want to do or create or achieve in the coming year?
I really look forward to continuing to help and offer more tips and tools for you as we go into 2020.
Want to know how to attract and sign up more clients in 2020?
My next 1-day client attraction workshop is happening on Saturday, 1st February 2020.
? In This One Powerful Day You Will Learn:
? The BEST methods to connect instantly with your audience and INFLUENCE them to your ideas
? How to become a master influencer and build authentic trust and a powerful connection with your ideal clients
? How to use neuro-marketing to influence the SUBCONSCIOUS mind in your written and spoken content
? The MOST effective way to design your marketing plan so that you nail your message, and attract the right clients
? The BIGGEST mistakes Coaches make in their marketing and how to avoid them
? A proven, effective marketing plan that you can tailor to your business
If you want to grow a profitable coaching business, this workshop is a must.
2020 is the year to finally let go of what’s holding you back and create the life you dream of!
Leave a Reply