Are You Ready to Embrace 2019?

It’s time for You 2.0.  Get ready to let go of fears and embrace your dreams in 2019.

I’ve talked a bit in prior posts about goal setting, and will be diving in a bit deeper here so you can refine your goals.

Do You Know Where You’re Going?

As I mentioned in Setting Goals and Visualizing, it’s important to know where you want to go.

Journaling and meditation will help you refine your dreams. If you dream you want to remodel the kitchen, and you visualize it painted in a pretty pink, you may realize that you’d rather have a buttery yellow instead.

See Your Vision Clearly

But you shouldn’t wait until the goal is completely clear. You should start today with putting together how your life will be when you achieve this goal.

Some people make a vision board, others meditate, journal, or visualize. The key is to do it consistently until you know exactly where you’re going.

Great Goal Setting

We’re all guilty of that.

So how do you set a goal that you’ll keep?

There are four basic things you need to do to achieve your goals.

State your goal in very specific terms that you can accept

Use words that are meaningful to you. If you’re uncomfortable with saying you want to be wealthy, then find a word that’s meaningful to you.

However, you may also want to do some introspection as to why you are uncomfortable being wealthy.

Also, make the goal as positive as possible. You don’t want to be out of debt, you want to be able to have money in the bank so you have the freedom to make choices.

Plan backwards from your goal for the best results

This doesn’t mean you need to have the whole thing planned out. Far from it. Often we get so caught up in the way to do it that we get stuck and don’t do anything.

It’s important to know how to be flexible and make adjustments.

If you know that you need to achieve a certain milestone, then you can work backwards from there to see what your next step must be to get there.

If you wanted to go on a holiday but didn’t have a passport, you’d need to have that in your list of steps. Perhaps you need to make an appointment and they take six weeks to obtain.

Planning backwards helps you think of certain actions you will need to take in order to get where you’re going. But don’t fall into the perfectionism trap and think that you have to know everything.

Confront your fears and expectations immediately

If you felt overwhelmed thinking about next steps, that’s probably a fear popping up. Or an expectation of yourself that you have to know everything.

It’s time to let that go. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to know everything.

If you need to make a phone call and keep putting it off, is there an underlying fear that you have about that phone call?

I’ll go more into fear in a bit.

Put your plan into your calendar so you can take action today

It’s important that you treat your goal like it’s a priority. If you want to write a book, you could set daily appointments with yourself.

Or if you want to exercise regularly, make an appointment with yourself and tell people that you have to meet your trainer. You can be your own trainer, right?

Another quick thing you can do is start a list of your time stealers. Keep it near where you work so you can add to it. Then be aware of when they sneak in!

Some time stealers could be:

• Interruptions
• Meetings
• Tasks you could have delegated
• Social Media (we can never just quickly check one thing….)
• Indecision
• Poorly defined priorities
• Lack of planning
• Stress, worry, anxiety and fatigue
• Inability to say “No”
• Disorganization (you’re sure you left that statement somewhere…)

Remember, a big source of procrastination is thinking you have to get everything done all at once so you don’t even start.

If parts of your life are not where you want them to be, accept it and put together a plan to adjust it.

If you want your work area to be better organized, spend five minutes a day filing and cleaning up. Then make sure you don’t increase clutter by not adding to it.

What Is Your Big Why

What is your definition of success

Opportunity comes in a variety of forms.

What Are Your Fears

In a prior blog, I talked about facing your fears because of how you will grow as a person.

But let’s dive in a little more about types of fears and other ways of letting go of fear, and coping in the moment.

What Is the Source

If you’ve been journaling for some time, you’ve probably learned how to use introspection to identify your fears. If you haven’t, you can journal online or using an actual book.

Once you’ve identified the fear, take a step back and ask yourself how you got that fear.

Often we learn the fear from our parents, and then friends and other relatives. If your parents worried about money, you may have picked up on that fear and are always worried about money.

Perhaps you hold yourself back because your family was afraid of success. Once you figure out the source, you can work your way to freedom.

Is Shyness A Fear?

Some people are genetically shy. Others are shy due to experiences when they were young.

The best way to conquer shyness (and it’s twin “public speaking”) is to build up your self-confidence.

I’ll write more on this in the future. But for now, write down your successes. And review them regularly. It can even be small things like you remembered to pay a bill on time.

Just know you’re wonderful and the world deserves to know you.

The Key to Leaving Fear Behind

One of the best ways to leave fear behind is gratitude.

Say “thank you” to the Universe for providing you with lessons and the opportunity to grow.

Gratitude allows you to be more positive in a situation and respond rather than react with fear.

Mind Swaps

• “This is happening for a reason, and I’ll find that reason” for “Why is this happening to me?”
• “I will try my best” for “I can’t do this.”
• “I’m not ready to give up trying” for “i’m a failure”
• “I’m ready to tackle the challenges I’m about to face” or “I will find the opportunity in this situation” for “I’m going to have a hard time adjusting to this.”

What negative thoughts do you have? How can you turn them positive?

My Final Thoughts

Tomorrow is always a new and fresh day to embrace. If you didn’t do your best today, that’s ok. Learn from it, and let it go.

Learning to say no and learning how to delegate are the biggest challenges for most people.

We think that if we say no, people won’t like us. And there’s a trap with delegation where we think we’re the only ones who an do it.

Hang around positive people who support your goals and spend less time around those who are negative.

And finally, challenge yourself to take risks. Start out small and work your way up. Just make sure you journal your progress so at the end of the year you can see how far you’ve grown!

What are you committing to this year?