In the beginning of every new year, everyone seems to have high hope for what is coming, especially in January where things are still new and look fresh.
However, if you look back into the previous year, what have you done? Do you manage to achieve the goals you have set? What about your previous year’s resolution?
According to studies, most people will fail to achieve their new year resolution because they can’t follow through the entire year.
It is great to resolve and have the desire to lose weight and to earn more money in this brand new year, the problem is that can you sustain the habit? Can you be consistent enough?
Besides being consistent with your goals and actions for the entire year, do you know how to start or where should you begin?
This is exactly what this article is about – sharing with you my thoughts about how everyone can make the best of their year with ten simple suggestions.
1. Start by Getting Enough Sleep
The first thing you need to do to achieve more is to rest more. Yes, when you have enough rest, you will have enough energy and productivity to get more done.
When it comes to working hard and accomplishing more, the first thing that most people will sacrifice is their health, especially their sleep time.
They choose to sleep later and wake up earlier to take more action and to accomplish more.
It is true that you need to work hard, but if you don’t have the optimum energy level to operate throughout the day, there is no way you can produce great performance each day.
Imagine having not enough sleep, tired, sleepy, feeling like a zombie, and you need to stay alert by drinking a lot of coffee, do you think you can produce amazing work at this state?
Not at all. Your performance will suffer when you have not enough sleep. This is especially true for creative work.
If you are a writer or a blogger and you need to write a lot each day, your energy level will greatly impact your creativity. And when your creativity is low, you feel like giving up and procrastinate. You just do not want to write. Or you feel like you run out of things to write.
So get enough sleep. National Sleep Foundation advised people to get about 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night. And for most successful entrepreneurs sleep about 6 to 7 hours a night.
Check out this list of successful people and the hours of sleep they get each night from Huff Post:
- Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX: 6 hours per night (1 a.m. – 7 a.m.)
- Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: 7 hours per night (9:30 p.m. – 4:30 a.m.)
- Bill Gates, Co-Founder of Microsoft: 7 hours per night (12 a.m. – 7 a.m.)
- Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group: 5-6 hours per night (12 – 5/6 a.m.)
- Jack Dorsey, Co-founder of Twitter: 7 hours per night (10:30 p.m. – 5:30 a.m.)
- Tim Armstrong, Chairman, and CEO of AOL: 6 hours per night (11 p.m. – 5 a.m.)
- Barack Obama, President of the United States: 6 hours per night (1 a.m. – 7 a.m.)
- Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO of Amazon.com: 7 hours per night (10 p.m. – 5 a.m.)
- Ellen DeGeneres, TV Host: 8 hours per night (11 p.m. – 7 a.m.)
The majority of them sleep about 6 to 7 hours a night.
And depending on your body and health condition, you may want to take enough sleep so that you can operate at an optimum level to produce better work.
Get enough sleep, my friend. If you want to perform better and make this year your best year ever, you need to have enough rest so that you can go farther.
2. Develop Powerful Morning Habits
The second suggestion to make 2018 your best year is to develop powerful morning habits.
As you may already know, your habits are the ones that will shape your life. It is what you do each day that will destine your success, not what you do once in a while.
Thus, develop powerful morning habits that will get you through a productive day.
Morning is the best time because this is the time when you are fully awake and most fresh. Your energy is high in the morning and there are fewer distractions.
Your mornings will set the pace for the rest of your day. If you start your morning with a lot of accomplishments, you will go through your day with higher confidence and feel great.
This is why mornings are important.
Previously, I have written an article about the best morning habits to adopt. I recommend you read it and to develop your own productive morning habits. Check out the post:
11 Best Morning Habits To Adopt If You Want To Be Productive And Motivated
Make full use of your mornings. If you are able to start your mornings with productivity and greatness, the rest of the day will take care of itself.
And the key to living a great year is to have as many great mornings as possible.
3. Plan Your Day the Night Before
Another important habit you want to adopt is the habit of planning your day the night before.
First, I hope you’ll agree that planning is important. While it is true that not everything is within our control and sometimes things will just go out of hand, but having a plan is much, much better than having no plan at all.
Second, you want to plan at night before the next day arrives because you want to hit the ground running and know what you need to do the next morning.
Some people may choose to plan their day in the morning and this is absolutely fine, but I will suggest you plan at night before you end your day.
This is because it can save you a lot of energy and you do not have to think about what to do in the morning when you wake up.
You will know what to do because you already planned it the night before. So make this your habit. Plan your day the night before you sleep for the whole year.
Trust me, you will feel the difference and you will become more productive.
4. First Thing First
If you’re serious about making 2018 your best year ever, this is the thing that you need to do. You need to focus on “First thing first”.
Meaning to say, you’re going to do what is most important first. Now, don’t misunderstand by thinking that something important equals to something urgent.
The things that are important are your goals. You have to work on your goals the first thing in the morning.
For example, I treat growing my blog, this blog, as something important. While I need to work during the daytime like most people did, I choose to spend my early morning hours to write and come up with content.
My work is something urgent, but growing my blog is something important because I treat it as a business and I want to grow it.
What about you? Are you doing what is important the first thing?
The problem with most people is that they are not working on their goals. They treated their goals as something less important and they choose to work on them the last.
If you choose to work on your goals the last, you will often procrastinate because you’ve used up your energy and willpower on something else.
This is why most people find it difficult to work at night because they have gone through the entire day and feeling exhausted.
Therefore, choose to work on your goals the first thing in the morning. And when you get into the office, work on your most important task first as well. Get the most important tasks done and you will be productive.
5. Set Goals
Do I even need to explain this even further? I guess this is pretty self-explanatory in the sense that if you want to live a better 2018, you need to set goals and move toward your goals each day.
Here are a few pointers to help you…
- Set as few goals as possible. Harness the power of focus and achieve the goals that truly matter to you. The more you are trying to achieve, the less you will accomplish. Focus your energy on things that you really desire to have.
- Make sure your goals are as specific as possible with an element of measurement. You want to be able to measure your goals so that you can tell when you achieve them.
- Give your goals a realistic time frame. A lot of people are being unreasonable by setting goals that are too big with the unreasonable time frame. While I’m not saying that you should not set big goals, but big goals require a totally different strategy and game plan to achieve.
So if you are setting big goals, make sure your strategy is appropriate and can justify the results you want. Give yourself enough time to grow and to become the person worthy of your goals.
6. Turn Your Goals into Schedules
Goals are just the end results that you want to achieve. What you need to do is to turn your goals into schedules.
Studies have shown that people are more likely to follow through a schedule than to take action on something vague.
For example, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds in three months, you can turn it into a schedule such as telling yourself that you will workout in the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 5pm to 6pm.
When you schedule your goals, you make them easier to follow through and to act on.
And when you work on your schedule, you will automatically achieve your goals because you are actually working on them.
Schedules make your goals measurable and actionable.
7. Review Your Goals Daily
This is the number one mistake that people often make after they set their goals. They never review their goals.
My friend, please understand that goal setting is a continuous process and not a one-time work.
If you want to make this year your best year ever, you must consistently review your goals each day. You must keep yourself on track and remind yourself of what you want to achieve.
We’re all busy with things. And if we are not careful, we tend to forget about our goals and never do anything about them.
Most people set their New Year resolution in late December or early January. However, it is sad to see that most people have given up on their goals when they reach February.
Never let this happen to you. Focus on your goals each day and review them.
8. Take Action Every Day
Now I know that you already know this, but still, I want to stress how important it is to consistently take action.
Without action, there is no way you can achieve the results, and hence reaching your goals. Without action, you will be stagnant and stay on the same ground.
Somehow, 2018 will end and 2019 will arrive eventually. Do you want to stay the same and be where you are right now? Or do you want to improve and get better? What about your 2018 goals? Do you want to achieve them or re-set them again in 2019?
The choice is yours, my friend.
You can choose to take action and be different. Or you can choose to stay the same by procrastinating, not taking action, and giving excuses to why you can’t do it.
Of course, I’m suggesting you work 24/7 on your goals without sleep. You can follow the 1-Minute Rule and improve slowly and steadily each day.
Whatever you do, make sure you are moving forward toward your goals. If you are not doing anything at all, you will have to accept the fate that you will have to re-live 2017 this year.
Therefore, get yourself a good reason to take action. And then follow your plan and do it every single day.
9. Commit to Growth
The only way you can make 2018 your best year is to become the person worthy of what you desire in 2018.
If you want to earn a million dollar, you must equip yourself with the mindset, traits, characters, qualities and habits of a millionaire.
It is who you are that will determine the results you get in life. So commit to growth and become the person worthy of the success that you desire.
Therefore, read books, learn, attend seminars, develop productive habits, and build qualities that will make you the successful person who you want to be.
It is by becoming the right person with the right qualities that you can achieve the goals and success you want. It is not just about taking action or setting goals but to be THE person; becoming the man of success.
10. Read and Subscribe to StunningMotivation.com and Follow Me on Facebook
Do I need to say more? As what you have learned, learning and growth are one of the most important factors that will determine your success in life.
This year will be exciting for StunningMotivation.com and I have some interesting plans for it. Come join me and get to a higher level this year.
So read this blog regularly. Better yet, subscribe to my email list and I will share with you some of the most cutting-edge information about success, motivation and how you can achieve your goals.
Besides that, follow me on Facebook by liking the fan page StunningMotivation.com.