Why 2020 Is Going to Be Your Best Year

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With all of this talk about 2020 (mostly political, but we won’t go there!), can you believe that we’re not just about to enter a new year, but a whole new decade?

 

I’m thinking that it sounds like a fantastic, magical time to make 2020 your best year yet!

 

I’ve created a format that you can follow along each month that will help you not only set goals, but actually accomplish them!

 

With taking time to set goals, writing down all of the tasks that come with those goals, and actively working on them throughout each day – you’ll find that this method keeps you accountable and in-check, if you stick with it.

 

Have you ever got really excited about goal setting? You sit down, write down all your goals, and you want to do everything all at once? How many of those goals have you accomplished? Kudos to you if you’ve accomplished any of them!! We tend to make accomplishing goals so difficult because we throw too many eggs in the basket.

 

The truth is, it takes even longer than those 27 days to make a true habit. It’s really hard to stay consistent with even just one or two things each day, let alone the ten that you may have in mind.

 

So I’m going to encourage you to lighten the load and just choose a couple of big goals that you’d like to accomplish to start with, and do your progress checks every two weeks and determine how things are going. You can always add more later as you become more comfortable with a new schedule that includes items that help you accomplish

 

The following five steps will help you successfully make 2020 your best year yet!

 

1. Have a Clear “Why”

 

Before you get started on planning your goals, I’d like for you to take a few minutes to think about each of the goals you have in mind for 2020. If I asked you why you wanted to accomplish them, what would you say about each goal?

 

It’s important to have a great reason(s) for wanting to achieve your goals. Your “why” is the foundation to making your goals happen, and that foundation needs to be solid.

 

For example, a typical New Year’s Resolution is to lose weight. If your “why” is that you want to be the same size as you used to be in high school, is that really good enough for when you need motivation? I don’t think so. You need something stronger, like you want to be healthier so that you can set a good example for your little ones.

 

Take your time and really dig deep for a great “why” for every goal that you choose. Keep these reasons behind your dreams in front of you at all times!

 

You could create a vision board, write it on one of those big poster boards, or in your daily planner. Just as long as it’s where you can see it daily, so it helps you stay focused on accomplishing all of those wonderful goals you have planned!

 

 

2. Make a Master List

 

To get the ball rolling, I like to create a master list of things I’d like to accomplish during the course of the year. This list is generally really, really long for me!

 

The reasoning behind this is because I take time to consider every single thing I would like to learn, make happen, take care of…just everything that I can think of. These items can be adjusted throughout the year, and don’t worry, we aren’t going to try to do this all at once! This is just the starting point and a “all my goals in one place” idea.

 

Choose Your Categories

 

To make your master list, start with setting categories for different areas in your life. Here’s a list of possible categories below, but be sure to choose categories that you truly want to work on, change, make better, etc.

 

You can choose as many or as little categories as you would like, and don’t worry, you can tweak the names along the way. We’re basically creating a rough draft at this point.

 

 

Write Down Goals for Each Category

 

Now that you’ve chosen some categories, write down the goals within each category that you would like to accomplish in 2020. I encourage you to include absolutely anything that you would like to make happen!

 

Here’s an example of some break downs for each category.

 

 

3. Break Down the Master List

 

By this step, you should have a rough draft of your master list completed so that you can use it for reference.

 

Having a list of what you want to accomplish for 2020 just isn’t enough to make it happen! There are fundamental tasks that we need to complete in order to make each goal on our list a reality. If those items don’t get scheduled into our daily life, then they likely won’t be a part of it at all.

 

Create Mini Goals

 

In order to break down your master list, you need to do this process for each and every goal on your list. I know this may seem daunting, but it truly helps having a step-by-step plan as to how you can accomplish each goal.

 

We can get really overwhelmed when we see these goals and have no idea where to begin. This helps eliminate that scary feeling, and just allows you to see it as a doable process.

 

Choose a category, and then start with the first goal that you’ve written down. Start thinking about exactly what specific steps you would need to do in order to actually make that goal happen. Then, write down those steps in the order they need to be completed.

• Let’s say one of your goals is to read 12 books in 2020. You could then break it down into choosing which books those twelve will consist of, whether you will have to buy those books or if you already own some of them, and then choose one book per month to read. You could then break it down even further to how much you would read per day to end up reading that book within a month’s time.

 

Truly, you don’t have to get this specific if you like being more spontaneous with a fun goal like reading 12 books in 2020. I’m just trying to make the point of just how specific you should generally be with your goals.

 

Pair Those Mini Goals with Their Respective Goals

 

Once you’ve listed all of these mini goals for each goal on your master list, go back and add them underneath each goal as bullet points.

 

If you wrote your list with a pen and paper versus on a computer, you can start on a new piece of paper and keep it with your master list. Also, if things are looking a bit of a mess, no matter how you wrote your list, don’t be alarmed. You can go back and make things look better after we are completely finished.

 

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4. Add Mini Goals Into Your Daily Schedule

 

Wondering why you took all of that time to break down each goal into smaller, more manageable tasks? This is it! Now, we are going to add in those mini goals into our daily schedule so that we are touching our goals each and every day of 2020.

 

This step is so crucial to success. Even if you don’t skip out on breaking down your master list, you’re potentially setting yourself up for failure if you don’t actually implement these into your daily life.

 

 

Determine Goals That Are Time-Sensitive

 

This step is all about prioritizing your goals. Some goals that you’ve written down may be centered around a particular time of the year, such as a test that you want to pass that’s only given in June.

 

Once you’ve got a good idea of the goals with a particular time frame, go ahead and write those in your calendar. Be sure to write yourself reminders, if needed, ahead of time in your planner. Let’s say you’ve got a test in June. You don’t want to just write down the date of the test, and not actually schedule in time to study.

 

Likewise, you will need more than one day to study – so be sure to put in times/dates for studying throughout your planner for as long as you think you’ll need (a month, two months, etc.).

 

Choose a Time Frame for The Goals You’re Doing at Your Own Pace

 

I know the beauty of working on some goals at your own pace is to not to have as much pressure to get them done ASAP. However, you will be doing yourself a huge disservice if you don’t put some sort of time frame on each goal.

 

Many times, our “resolutions” at the end of the year don’t happen because we just sort of said that we wanted to do something, but never set goals along the way to check in and see how our progress is going. We have to hold ourselves accountable, otherwise, we’re probably not going to make the time necessary to achieve those wonderful goals we’ve set!

 

5. Create Progress Checkpoints

 

The key to sticking to your goals is to continually check in with yourself and track your progress.

 

Often times, we get caught up in our daily lives and things unexpectedly come up. This can cause us to forget about goals – so we have to have a plan of attack for when that happens!

 

Disclaimer: It is OKAY to take time off from goals, especially when life happens and things become a little difficult. What is important is that you recognize when those things happen, give yourself grace, and don’t give up. You can take a break, and then bounce back onto making progress.

 

Create a tracking system for each goal on your list. I recommend checking in every two weeks to see how things are going. Assess what it and isn’t working, and don’t be afraid to be flexible.

 

As they say, forward is forward and progress is progress. It doesn’t always matter that how quickly you make something happen, it just matters that you do make it happen.

 

I also want to mention that it is more than okay to change your goals along the way.

 

Let’s say that you follow this plan, break down your master list and have incorporated your mini goals in your daily schedule – but you still haven’t been successful. Those goals in particular may not be for you.

 

Sometimes we write down what we think we should do instead of what we actually want to do, and then we just don’t have the drive to complete those tasks. Don’t be afraid to pivot and change your path!

 

I hope that this post will inspire you to set your goals, write them out and make them happen.

 

Let’s make 2020 your best year yet!

 

 

Let’s Chat!

Are you excited for 2020?
Have you started setting goals yet?
What are you looking forward to most about next year?