Welcome to a new year, we made it! 2021… hindsight really is 2020 now. I would love to write and say that 2021 will be easy and less stressful than the year we just had, but I cannot. Not that I am being mean-spirited here, but every year, day or month is filled with challenges.
It is how you address those challenges that matters.
One good thing you learned about yourself this year is that you are tougher than you thought. Plus, congratulate yourself for making it through the last year. We are still here and now as 2021 begins, we are starting off with hope, vision, new goals, new ways of doing business, and let’s now take that and anchor it in.
I want you to stand up and give yourself a hug for making it through the last year. I also want you to repeat these affirmations…
I am proud of myself for not giving up!
I can do great things this year!
I am loving myself and I approve of who I am!
I am a success!
I am creative, resourceful, and whole!
You see, we are all that. But there are days where we are not that. I ask you to challenge your inner beliefs about yourself this year ahead and re-affirm who you are. To me, if you made it through, then you’re a “Super-Hero” in my books.
Now, as we move ahead and set our sights on a new year ahead, be sure to take time as we ease into it to plan ahead.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Here are a few cool steps you can take to anchor in the grace and goodness you want to bring forth in your life and business this year.
1. Plan
Have you topped off your business plan? Or revised it? Do you have a business plan? Maybe it is time to do one and if you do not feel like researching the market, your clients, or budgets in an in-depth way, then you can do a Lean or Business Model Canvas, which is a one-page map of your business.
But be sure to take time to plan. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, said, “When you reduce your plan to writing it out, you give concrete form to the intangible.” Meaning, when you write out your goals, or what it is you want to create in the year ahead, it becomes real, it becomes possible.
2. Action Sheets
I want to encourage you to create an action sheet. An action sheet is done every quarter…so if you are creating yours, up top are the months January, February, and March, and below you input the actions you want to take in your business to drive it forward. For example, one action in January might be to work on your business plan, another might be to revise your website, maybe one more action might be to begin to call 10 new clients a week! You get the idea.
The key to this is to plan your actions and write them down for the next 3 months. It is helpful, because it assists you in being focused on what you want to create this year!
3. Vision Boards
I love creating an annual vision board and, well, since this last year didn’t go as planned, it is time to plan for new things. You can even have a Zoom Vision Board Party (we can do this in person again soon), and what you do is get a nice board (I went to my local dollar store) and then get some magazines together and begin to look through them and clip pictures you like and sayings and put them together.
Then you begin to place them on the board where you want them to be. I like grouping things, like I group my health goals, my business goals, and spiritual goals together if I can.
4. Envision
This year ahead, take time to envision your success, meditate, visualize, and see your success in your mind’s eye. You would be surprised at what can happen when you do this consistently.
A few years ago, I went through a divorce and job loss within 2 months of each other. I was reeling, as my life seemed to collapse. But I bought a book called The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, by Robin Sharma.
The book is a tale of a man who changed his life. Within the book the concept of visualizing was discussed, and I began to practice this at night before bed.
My goal was to switch careers (since I lost my job, the timing was perfect). I would envision myself teaching. When I saw this in my visualizations, the room I taught in had light pink walls. This color scheme is not my preference, however, as fate would have it, a chance came up about 4 months after this visualization to actually teach and get paid for it.
Within 6 months, I was hired and paid to teach “Marketing on a Shoestring” to new entrepreneurs. The room I taught in had light pink walls.
Amazing isn’t it? Take time to visualize this year ahead. Get in the practice of doing.
Planning
Action sheets (every quarter)
Vision boards
Envisioning
When you add the first letters up, you will P-A-V-E the way towards a successful new year.
Be blessed!
