A simple plan to help you keep your New Year promises made to yourself

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It is necessary to achieve the goals set for the new year not from January 1, but right now.

On the Internet, you can stumble upon the following saying: “At school, you go to lessons, and then take the test. In life, you are given a test that teaches you a lesson."

What I don't like about this quote is that you have to wait for the test anyway. In fact, you can start taking your test any day of the week. And when finished, the result will not be long in coming.

At the end of 2015, I developed such a test for myself. Its essence was to learn something from a new book every day, and then write about it. Write every day for the next year. The day I made this decision, I had already learned the first lesson.

New Year starts today

Don't get ready. Get started. Remember, our enemy is not a lack of preparation, complexity of a project, market conditions, or a lack of money in a bank account.

The enemy is the Resistance. The enemy is our talkative brain, which comes up with excuses, excuses and millions of reasons why we cannot / should not / will not do what we need to do. So start before you're ready.

"Do it!" Stephen Pressfield

92% of people do not keep their promises in the new year largely because they are sure that something will magically change on January 1. In fact, there is nothing magical here, but you can change everything at any time. You can start the new year any day. After all, you are a person, not a calendar.

If you start in December, you won't achieve much by January 1. But on the other hand, you will not need false motivation to continue what you started.

How to keep promises made to yourself

Set a simple but insane goal

Talking to a successful friend about investing in cryptocurrencies, I asked him what goal he would advise me to set for the next year. Not knowing how much money I have, he replied, "One million dollars."

He explained: “Look, last year, around Christmas, I set a completely utopian goal. Not because I need money, but just like that. I haven’t achieved it at all.”

You must learn the obvious truth: you cannot achieve results ten times higher than your usual goals without fundamentally changing the approach. The road to a big goal is bound to be harder and less obvious. Many people will think that you are crazy. But therefore, fewer people will stand in your way.

Completely abstract from your goal

My friend set an impossible goal so easily because he knew he could not control its implementation. He just did his best with what he had at that moment.

If your first thought is "I want a million dollars," then your second thought should be "I don't need a million dollars." Not now, not ever.

Put all your energy into 2-3 of your main strengths

It makes sense to split projects of short or medium duration into several parts. With more serious long-term goals, things are much more complicated.

Ask yourself: What is it that you can do long enough and well enough to help you get things done? Pick 2-3 main skills and find a way to achieve your goal with the help of them.

Try to figure out what you can do to use these skills as often as possible. That's enough - you don't have to rebuild your whole life.

Don't focus on side things

I write trying to save most of my income and invest it as profitably as possible. These are my three main skills. But since the approach is so simple, what exactly I write, how much I save, and where exactly I invest is secondary. Once I do all this, I will eventually reach my goal.

As a person who usually succeeds in completing the assigned tasks, it is difficult for me to digest. And even if you follow a clear step-by-step plan, you will likely get bored halfway through. However, this tunnel vision not only robs you of fun, but also opens up new possibilities.

Start Before You Are Ready

You're probably not ready to start moving towards your goal, right? This means that now is the time to strive for it.

What's your goal? Can you make it more meaningful? What skills can you use to achieve it? What little things can you get rid of?

Don't wait for life to ask you to take a test. Take and design your own. If not now, then when? The new year starts today.

Only put off until tomorrow what you don’t want to finish until you die.

Pablo Picasso painter