Your best year ever – It is a grand statement indeed.

“We have to do the best we are capable of. This is our sacred human responsibility.” ~ Albert Einstein.

Yes, it’s 2019 already! I recognise that is the kind of statement that smacks of a man in his mid 40s, but to caricature myself even further – the past year did fly by!

Resolutions have been made, and some have already been broken. The gyms have started emptying since the 2nd of January. If you’re looking to make 2019 your best year ever in terms of personal and professional progress, you may have to look at things differently.

“Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well.” ~ Denis Waitley.

Most of our new year’s resolutions often start with the best of intentions yet often quickly run out of steam, only to become a dim and distant memory by Spring. And there’s a good reason for that: it takes more than a simple promise to bring about lasting change and create your best year ever.

Here’s a great article on that specific topic, have a read:
9 Reasons Your New Year’s Resolutions Fail And The Inspirational Remedy.

Whether you have set your goals for the year or it’s still on your to-do list, read on to learn how to make 2019 your best year ever! 

Step 1 – What do you want?

It can be difficult to identify what you really want because it’s often wrapped up in what you should do, what you need to do and what’s expected of you. For example, the annual goal of ‘I should lose weight and get fit’ is the reason the gyms and slimming clubs are packed in January and empty come March. Ponder both your short and long-term goal, what drives you?

Experimental studies show evidence that setting goals increase success rate in various settings. Have a read of these articles to examine the evidence and principles of effective goal setting (even though the articles focus on sport and exercise, the principles are relevant to all aspects of life):

The Principles Of Goal Setting For Runners.

Goal Setting For Running, Exercising Or Sports.

There are numerous ways to set goals. First, let’s look at where things currently stand in your life. Everyone has a range of priorities and areas of importance in their lives, which include things such as; Business, Education, Faith, Family Life and Relationships, Finances, Health, Social Life and much more besides.  

Write your own set of these areas down as a list and beginning with the one that means the most to you, put them in some sort of order of priority Then give each a score in terms of how satisfied you are with it (1 being extremely dissatisfied and 5 being extremely satisfied, for example). So, for example, if you’re happy with your health, but you’d like to improve it, you’d probably want to give it a 3. Do some soul searching. You’re trying to come up with the true north of your life that will give you direction each and every single day, culminating collectively in your best year ever.

See where you are at and get a sense of what it is that you truly want. If you want to go much deeper into this, to get a sense of your purpose and how to strive towards a life purpose, have a read of this article:

What Is Your Life Purpose? 5 Ways To Discover It Today.

Step 2 – What is the dream?

Once you’ve identified what you truly want in step 1, focus on the dream. If you had a magic wand, what does the dream look like? How does it look to have your best year ever?

10 years from now, what do you want your life to be like?

What do you want people to remember you for?

What does success look like?

If you replied with one- or two-word answers, start over.

Spending time focusing on your ideal-world dream answers the all-important question of why you want achieve it and gives you the strength to keep going when things get in the way. Visualising yourself having already achieved the goal gives you the power to smash it! Here is a great way to use self-hypnosis to help with that:
The Generic and Classic Self-Hypnosis Outcome Generator – Creating Future Memories.

Have a think about what these outcomes give you or do for you and what they satisfy within you.

Step 3 – Move from your heart to your head

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” ~ Robert Frost.

Setting goals with your heart is great but don’t forget to check in with your head. Think about your goals and recognise how it makes you feel. “I want to lose weight” is almost meaningless as a goal.

Instead, your goal should include plenty of details. Imagine if someone else read it. Would they be able to achieve your desired results? Or would they end up with something completely different?

Consider using SMART goals without being too rigid – just use it as a means of objectively setting the goal once you have expressed the dream and helping formulate it (goals that add up to result in your best year ever) effectively:

•           Specific

•           Measurable

•           Attainable

•           Realistic

•           Time-Bound

Step 4 – What might hold you back?

When people fall short of their goals, it’s often because they don’t anticipate the obstacles they’ll face. No matter how excited or determined you are about your goal, things will get in the way. This could be work or family commitments or it could be the well-hidden, ever-so-sneaky obstacles that are often based on fear and can be difficult to spot by yourself. Your initial optimism about goal-setting carries you forward only until you hit that first challenge and then…back to mediocrity. Consider potential obstacles ahead by answering these questions: 

What logistical constraints may get in the way?

Which behaviours of yours could hinder your progress?

Which people in your life may be obstacles?

What has gotten in the way before?

“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

We all have an Inner Critic that likes to keep us in our comfort zone and when we start to make changes, it pipes up with phrases like “you can’t…”, “you should…” and, my personal favourite, “you’re not good enough…” The Inner Critic is the source of self-sabotaging limiting beliefs that may have been at work for years. This is one of the many reasons that is deterring you from achieving your goals. And if other things hold you back from achieving your goals, consider this wonderful quote:

“In order to say yes to your priorities, you have to be willing to say no to something else.” ~Unknown.

Here is a great article to help you if your inner critic is getting too persuasive:
Using Self-Hypnosis To Tame That Inner Critic.

Step 5 – Establish Ownership of Your Priorities

Look over that list you created in step one. While the categories that received 4s and 5s probably don’t need too much of your attention, the other areas most likely do.

“A goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.” ~ Joe Vitale.

Right now, write down some notes about what needs to happen this year to make each of these lower-scored areas the best they can possibly be. By documenting your intentions, you’re owning your outcome. Get a plan of action in mind ready to put into place shortly.

Step 6 – Set Your Own Theme!

What will the theme of your best year ever be?

The theme you choose will help keep you motivated.

It will help even more if you create a slogan for it, too – one that really stirs your imagination. Think in images, but try to keep your slogan to just two or three words (the perfect example of this is Nike: “Just Do It.”).

Do you have a flavour in mind, or something that symbolically represents your journey this year? Set up a mission statement or a slogan for yourself that will drive you and motivate you.

Step 7 – Time for action!

Now you’ve identified what you want, what it means to you and how it makes you feel, what are you going to do about it?! To paraphrase astronaut Neil Armstrong, what small step can to take towards achieving your goal? What giant leap can you take? Challenge yourself to think big when choosing the action steps to make your dream a reality. And if you can’t map out all the action steps that will get you all the way to your goal, don’t worry! Trust that once you take the first action, the next steps will become clear along the way.  This could mean running the extra mile, staying up late or waking up early. By pushing yourself a little more each day, you will dramatically improve your productivity and your results will energise you to keep going.

You have a finite amount of willpower and decision-making ability. If you put off important or uncomfortable tasks until late in the day, you will find that you are more likely to skip them altogether. Think of your important tasks as levels in a game. When you begin the game, you have all your lives and hit points available to you. It’s better to complete the tougher levels when you have more resources available to you. It might seem like a trivial idea, but it is tremendously effective when you put it into practice.

This will help:
How to Motivate Yourself to Take Action.

Step 8 – Accountability

Find an accountability partner (or group) who can keep you focused on your goals. Research has shown that sharing your goals not only makes you more accountable, but it fills a need for social connection. The simple act of telling another person about what you want to achieve can keep you on track. And knowing that someone else cares about how you’re getting on can give you the energy to keep going.  

“Accountability is critical to anyone leading a group of people, because, after all, every business is a people business. Accountability is how people get things done—or don’t get things done.” ~ Greg Bustin.

However, this step comes with a word of warning: please choose your accountability partner very carefully. Ideally, your accountability partner will not be affected by your goal and therefore have no reason to add their own thoughts, opinions and agenda into the mix. And they will be supportive, positive and encourage you towards achieving your goal. If you have such a person in your life, cherish them for they are a rare breed! Tell them about your goal, agree when you’re going to check-in with them and plan how you’re both going to celebrate when you’ve achieved it. 

“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” ~ Jim Rohn.

There are plenty of other ways to make yourself accountable, too. You can set calendar and phone alerts to remind yourself. Leave post-its with your goals written on them in places you pass often. Use notes on your phone or screensaver. Do whatever it takes so not a single day goes by without thinking about your goals.

Step 9 – Review and Revise!

The other reason you want to be constantly thinking about your goals is because they’re not going to be perfect.

That’s just fine.

As long as you regularly review them and make changes as necessary, imperfect goals eventually become perfect goals which eventually become accomplished goals. That is what makes your best year ever.

Step 10 – Well done you!

As well as keeping your eyes on the goal, it’s important to pause every now and then and acknowledge how far you have come. This is especially important on those days when achieving your goal feels like a long way to go. At regular points on your journey stop, look back and give yourself a pat on the back for all the actions you have taken and everything you have achieved up to this point. You may wish to reward yourself and factor in little rewards going forwards. It will make the rest of the journey towards the best year ever so much easier. 

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ~ W.B. Yeats.

So there you have it; The ten-step countdown to a great new year and to make this your best year ever. Take your time with these steps, a year is a big chunk of time and you want to get them right. Going through these formal countdown steps will make sure that 2019 will be a breakthrough year for you. Go for it.

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Have some of these themes here resonated with you? Then have a read of these pages:

1. Do you need help or support to stop comparing yourself or in another particular area of your life?
Coaching with Adam Eason Or Hypnotherapy with Adam Eason
2. Would you like a satisfying and meaningful career as a hypnotherapist helping others? Are you a hypnotherapist looking for stimulating and career enhancing continued professional development and advanced studies?
Adam Eason’s Anglo European training college.
3. Are you a hypnotherapist who is looking to fulfil your ambitions or advance your career?
Hypnotherapist Mentoring with Adam Eason.

Likewise, if you’d like to learn more about self-hypnosis, understand the evidence based principles of it from a scientific perspective and learn how to apply it to many areas of your life while having fun and in a safe environment and have the opportunity to test everything you learn, then come and join me for my one day seminar which does all that and more, have a read here: The Science of Self-Hypnosis Seminar. Alternatively, go grab a copy of my Science of self-hypnosis book, it’ll help you make this your best year ever!