Happy New Year’s everyone! I welcome you back to my blog.

This is the year you will get motivated to make some massive improvements across all areas of your life! But let me warn you, it won’t be easy. Are you up for the challenge?

Time to create some New Years resolutions… right? Actually forget about creating those New Years Resolutions because statistically speaking those who set a New Year’s Resolution goal are bound to fail anyways. If you really want to achieve a goal, you wouldn’t have waited until New Years to set it in the first place.

So why do so many New Years resolutions fail?

Lack of motivation
You get too busy with “life”
You set a goal you don’t believe you can achieve
The goal you set isn’t what you really want
The goal is too easy and there is no lasting challenge

First off, most New Year’s resolutions are structured in a boring manner that doesn’t motivate you to want to achieve the goal:

I want to lose 50 pounds
I want to quit smoking
I want to be less stressed
I want to get out of debt

So the first thing you can do when setting up a new goal is to define the goal to be more interesting and meaningful to you? Something like this:

“This year will be the beginning of the new me where I will become healthy and live a life full of vibrancy and energy. This is important to me because I will run a marathon, I will be able to set a positive example for my family and I will wake up each morning feeling completely alive.”

Isn’t this type of goal more uplifting and motivating then the previous set? This type of “goal” isn’t a New Year’s resolution anymore. It is a declaration of the type of life you want to live going forward.

Let’s take a step back for a moment and walk you through how to create a goal like this.

At the beginning of the year I ask myself one question, “What will I do this year to make this my best year ever?”

It is a very simple but powerful question. I then begin to write down anything and everything that pops into my mind. After I exhausted all my ideas, I look through my notes and begin to piece together my personal declaration for the year.

When creating goals, I advocate for thinking big! Come up with big ambitious and meaningful goals that are not necessarily realistic at the time. Ask yourself:

What are my impossible dreams?
What are things I have always wanted to do but didn’t think was possible?
Who do I want to become in the future?

When you close your eyes and visualize yourself achieving these goals, they should excite you, you should also feel a sense of fear, because the goal at this time seems so big. When you have this excited but scared feeling you know you are on the right track to the type of goal I am advocating for.

At this point in time you may not have any idea on how you will achieve your big goals, but right now it doesn’t matter. You have to have the self-belief that you will determine your HOW over time.

Don’t fall into the trap of setting goals that are small, realistic and timely (SMART goals). Sure you might achieve them but they don’t push you to the limits of your potential. Once you have a big, bold and meaningful goal, you can begin to create smaller "SMART" goals to help you create a "task list" of things you need to accomplish to get you closer and closer to your big goal.

Now that you have your big goals or declarations created you need to find a way to stay motivated to continue to pursue them over the course of the year. What can you do?

1. You need to believe you can achieve your goal

I know this is hard to believe but many people set goals and actually don't believe that they can achieve it... If you don’t believe you can ever reach your goal, than there is no way you will stay motivated to pursue it.

A classic example is losing weight, if one sets a goal to lose 50 lbs, and in the first 2 weeks you see yourself only losing 5 lbs, then you start to believe that you will never be able to reach your goal of 50 lbs.

Here a personal example: I have always wanted to be a professional basketball player. I can tell you without a doubt no matter what I did today I would never make it to the NBA! So that isn’t a goal I would set for myself. Even if I practiced my hardest, I would soon get demoralized because I know that this goal isn't obtainable.

For me, I like to use the power of visualization in order to increase my self-belief. I visualize myself already achieving the goal and really try to feel the emotions of how proud and happy I am when I do.

2. You need to be obsessed with your goal

Visualize it, post it on your bathroom mirror, or carry it around with you in your purse or wallet. Do what you need to do to ensure it sticks in your mind and gets constant attention.

Each time you see the goal, it should trigger you to take a brief moment to imagine what would it would feel like when you reached your goal.

The one caveat to this is that sometimes when you focus on your end goal too much and don't see enough progress, you get demoralized. See step 3 on how to defeat this feeling.

3. You need to make daily progress towards your goal

Each and every day you should wake up and try to do something that progresses you towards your goal.

I can’t say this enough, take baby steps towards your goal each and every day. MOTIVATION comes from MOMENTUM. Keep moving forward.

If you focus each and everyday on how you progressed towards your goal, you will see that your motivation will stay very high.

It is not about the destination, but rather it is about the journey. As you progress towards your goals, you should start to see yourself getting closer to reaching the potential that exists within you. You are getting closer to living a life as your best self.

4. You need to constantly reward yourself for small wins

Each time you hit a milestone, reward yourself. A reward could simply mean taking a minute or two to tell yourself that you have done well.

Make sure that your reward doesn’t move you backwards in anyway. For example, if you are trying to quit smoking and you reward yourself with a smoke that really isn’t helpful.

5. You need to maintain a positive attitude

Making changes will not come easy. If it did everyone would be living a perfect life right now. Expect to have low moments, expect to make some mistakes, and expect to have massive failures. Learn from them and move on. The last thing you want to do is allow yourself to fall into a negativity trap.

You of all people must be your own biggest cheerleader.

Here’s to a Happy New Year! I wish you all the most amazing year ever!

Much love from me to you.

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