3 Ways to Set Yourself Up For Success in 2021

Everything you have been taught about new year’s resolutions is a lie.

How many of you had a new year’s resolution in 2020 and you watched it circle the drain? Granted, we have had much adversity this year, but I know I have a few regrets: watching that marathon goal disappear, not losing that weight I said I would, only making it through half of my reading list. These are all things I probably could have and should have continued even with the pandemic as my “excuse”. 

There were many days where my mental health was complete garbage and I didn’t really know what it meant to cope until this year. I realized that I have some shitty coping mechanisms and what I need to do in order to turn around the narrative in my head on those bad days. I’m not saying this is meant to work for everyone (like those dealing with loss, grief, caring for the elderly, healthcare workers, etc.) but maybe these few mindset tips can help remind you of your “why” and help you find a quick spark of motivation to get that one thing done. 

1. Break down your goals to smaller activities

I will die on this hill. Literally, come at me all you want, but when people ask how I continue moving my business forward even when there are distractions amuck in my social feeds and personal life, this is the honest answer I give them. This is a strategy I learned from the High Performance Academy and it had worked wonders for me.

I work on my business or my goals at a minimum of one hour per day with exceptions like vacations and holidays. It takes one hour to learn something new, work through an outline, research website integrations, record a video, take pictures for social media, upload content to Vimeo, request transcripts on Fivver… the list goes on. These are all small tasks that I do daily that just keep things moving. 

Giving away one key part of my framework: break your goals down by month, week, and day in that order will help you determine what you need to do next to keep things moving. I spend about one to two hours each month at the beginning of the month deciding how I want to accomplish my goals over the next 30 days and it makes execution so much easier. I don’t need to think about what to do, I simply need to do it. Fair warning: this is a trial/error type of thing until you get the hang of it. I tried stuffing too many things into that one hour at first and it just ends up stressing you out. 

One key thing I realized about this little hack is that accomplishing these smaller tasks gives me a small sense of accomplishment that keeps me coming back for more. Stick around for number three if you’re curious about that. 

2. Don’t stress about a task before you get to it

Seriously, don’t think, just do. It’s kind of like when you schedule your workouts for first thing in the morning. For me, sometimes it works out best that I lay out all my workout clothes the night before and then get moving before my brain realizes what’s happening. This is really the same concept, but less body and more mind.

If I think too much about doing the task before I arrive at it, I have created undue anxiety over that task. Example: I do not like taking pictures for social media and writing copy for those posts every month. In my head, it takes much longer to be creative for those 10-12 posts than it does to write an entire blog post like this. However, for months where I just do it instead of creating this exhausting list of reasons on why I don’t want to do it or why I could put it off, I end up getting it done with zero issues. 

Additionally, with the help of the previous tip on this list, the anxiety level reduces significantly for me since I know I scheduled into my calendar that I have time to work on whatever that thing is. I have found that another hack in the feeling of anxiety due to overwhelm is to simply put time into the calendar to work on it so you don’t have to think about it before you get to it.

3. Visualize yourself completing the task

I tell my pole students this all the time when they’re not having a good pole day. Visualize yourself doing whatever it is perfectly and then embody that feeling of accomplishment before you do it. The genuine positive energy really gets you feeling some type of way to just get it done. I know that after I send my weekly emails, it feels nice to have my message out in the world. I remind myself of that every time I go to do the very tedious task of crafting these in my email tool so it feels less like work and more like a labor of love.

Circling back to the first tip in this list, these bite-sized accomplishments are extremely addictive to achievement-driven individuals. These small feelings of success keep me coming back for more each day. They keep me thinking about my goals on a day to day basis which means more ideas are bound to pop up in my head for me to execute. Really, I’m just perpetuating the idea → work → accomplishment cycle since accomplishment typically leads me to more ideas. What would you do with more ideas around your goals?

No one “failed” in 2020, we were simply all learning about overcoming adversity whatever that phrase meant for you. Now that we have spent a year learning, let’s take action to get shit done and anticipate any barriers we could use as an excuse for ourselves not to get that thing done.

Grab 2021 by the horns and keep those promises to yourself. You’re worth it! 

-Rachel