I wanted to write this article to share with you the seven steps you can use to consistently achieve your New Years Resolutions year after year.
Using the seven steps I’ve outline below, I’ve accomplished the following:
- In 2014, I built a passive income business, quit my job in June, threw out my alarm clock in July, and spent six months re-living the college party life at the age of 27.
- In 2015, I drove all across the United States on a road trip filming motivational YouTube videos everywhere from The Deep South, The Grand Canyon, Seattle, and back through the mountains of Colorado.
- In 2016, I lost 50 pounds, fell in love, and traveled the world.
- In 2017, I published two books on personal development and entrepreneurship and adopted the healthiest diet I ever ate in my life.
In November 2016, at the age of 30, I realized that I already achieved all those big goals I set out for myself in life. Goals I never thought to be possible for me when I was broke and unemployed living with my parents at the age of 25. I largely attribute it to the seven steps I outline for you to achieve your New Years resolutions year after year.
Step 1 – Create a Positive Vision of the Future
When going on a road trip, before you can find the directions to get to where you are going, you’re going to have to know exactly where you want to arrive at first, does that make sense?
When setting goals for yourself, the part of your brain that is programmed to bring things into our awareness does not process a negative. If you focus on what you’re running away from (or what you don’t want), this will bring more of those things into your awareness.
- In 2018, I want to have launched my courses in Finding a Business Idea, Motivation, Sales, and Marketing through my business Limitless Academy and bring in my next 1,000 paying customers for each.
- On the side of my main business, I want to have already published my book on Men’s Personal Development (for relationships) called The Well Defined Man.
Step 2 – Why Do You Want It?
While the positive vision of the future is the work you’ll channel your energy into. Your WHY is the energy that fuels the fire.
Why do I want to build a large business that helps first-time entrepreneurs get motivated and trained to start and grow their business? Why do I want to publish a book on men’s personal development?
To be honest, I want to be in the position to provide for a woman that I choose to be my life partner, and be able to do anything we want to do in life together. If she wants to travel to Dubai to go Skydiving on a weeks’ notice, live in a certain house, or do whatever she wants to do; the love I feel for the woman I choose to be with is the thing that lights the fire in my heart to make this possible for me…and for her.
But that’s just me. Just typing up that paragraph above brings up an emotion that is a twelve-out-of-a-ten on a scale of intensity.
What brings up the emotions within you?
- Do you want to prove to the haters that they were wrong about you?
- Do you want that sense of admiration and recognition/fame?
- Accomplishment and Growth?
- Contribution?
- Freedom to quit your job?
What brings up the emotions in you? This is the fuel the lights the fire. If the very thought of the thing brings up that same twelve-out-of-a-ten emotion in your body, you’re on the right track.
Connect the task you need to get done with the feelings that desire will bring to you, and this is how you bring up things that drive you to move forward and achieve more.
Step 3 – What Habits/Actions/Behaviors do you have to STOP doing?
Growing up, my mother told me to eat my vegetables. The way she got me to eat my broccoli and green beans was to slather them up with copious amounts of butter and salt to make them taste good.
Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of eating healthy?
While most people focus on what they want to START doing, those of us who are serious about accomplishing our goals in the new year really take a hard look at what we need to STOP doing.
I need to stop checking instagram every 30 minutes.
Step 4- Chunk it Down to Avoid Overwhelm
When we focus on our big goal, so many thoughts and emotions come up to the point where we feel overwhelmed and get stuck in our tracks.
When we take our larger goal and break it down into one very specific actionable step, this leads us with the focus and clarity we need. When we mix this with our WHY (the emotions from #2), and use that to fuel the fire into one focused step, these small steps add up over time.
WHY will doing this ONE task lead you to feeling the emotions of the goal you set out for yourself in #1, providing you the emotions you want in #2?
When I climbed a mountain every morning, it was fueled by the feelings that the women I fell in love with would see me get in great shape and we would be together.
While that didn’t work out romantically, I lost 50 pounds doing it.
And that’s a win in itself.
Step 5 – Become an Expert in Human Behavior
While most people try to be motivated by pumping themselves up with feel-good emotions from instagram posts of cars or motivational YouTube video; that only leads to getting addicted to feel-good emotions (and not doing anything). The ones who truly master the art of accomplishing their goals become an expert in understanding, taking control of, and mastering the science of human behavior.
I did so by becoming certified as an NLP Practitioner.
If you set one specific step to accomplish today, hand a trusted friend a check for $100 and he gets to cash it if you don’t complete that task today…would the pain you feel from losing the $100 motivate you to push yourself into action?
It’s those pain/pleasure motivators that are one of 16 motivators for how we are programmed to take action as human beings.
Step 6 – Embrace the Flow State
When we focus on what we do want, the selective focus in our brain unconsciously and automatically begins to spot opportunities and people in our life that are aligned with our goals.
In 2015 when I spent 5 months living in Scottsdale, Arizona, I was on the phone with my mother who asked what types of flowers were along the trail I was walking on. I looked up and the trail was filled with flowers that I never noticed before.
My mind was focused on marketing and advertising, so I was too busy automatically seeing signs for marketing everywhere. That’s what I wanted to focus on.
There is a spiritual belief that when we set a specific goal in our life (#1), things and people manifest into our life in some type of esoteric sense to help us get there. While that whole manifestation crowd sits on their couch trying to manifest money, the more down-to-earth belief is that we should embrace the mentors and people who come our way, as if they are coming for a reason.
Accept and embrace the things and people that come your way because they are often times aligned with your goals in life. It’s usually the people who seem to come into your life effortlessly.
Don’t get too spiritual on me here.
Step 7 – Detach from Outcome
I lost 50 pounds the other year.
Did I try to lose 50 pounds? No.
I literally just woke up every morning, climbed a mountain for 2-3 hours, got a coffee on the way back home and did intermittent fasting until noon as I wrote chapters for my book.
I didn’t care about the outcome, because the goal for me was not the outcome after-all. It was by shifting the focus from the outcome I wanted to achieve, to the tasks I wanted to do.
- Losing weight turned into climbing mountains.
- Being a best-selling author turned into writing the chapter on overcoming nervousness and anxiety.
- Getting in the relationship turned into going out to different meet up groups.
When you enjoy the tasks you are doing, and make that the focus, eventually the results will come. As long as you follow sound business advice and focus your efforts in the right areas.
By following these steps, I’ve accomplished some pretty incredible results in my life and achieved virtually every goal I set out for myself in my life by the time I turned 30 (built a passive income business that impacted millions of people and traveled the world).
Goals I never once thought to be possible for me.
While you still need to put in the work and effort to get there, these seven steps will make your journey virtually effortless when you embrace what comes your way and let the motivation flow.
