How to move forward and actually achieve things.
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Topics Covered This Week
The new year is here, you can achieve your goals.
You just need to make sure you know what they are.
Setting intentions for the year ahead is fun, exciting and gives you directions, in all aspects of your life, work, creativity, personal growth and more.
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0:00
The first episode of 2021. So welcome to a new year.
I’m recording this on the 3rd of January, which is a Sunday ready for broadcasting on Tuesday, the 5th 2021. It’s going to be a podcast about setting intentions for the year ahead.
I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of this at the moment, but I do believe it’s important. So I’m going go through that with you.
My first little intro of the year:
I’ve been having a television week, not got a right lot of work done, but I’m okay with it. I think sometimes you need to chill and sit back a little bit.
We’ve not had as many holidays this year. I think all of us across the globe have realised that lockdowns and things like that have put a hold on our travel plans. I know my Instagram account is now full of huge number of throwback pictures from all over the place where people have been relying on holiday memories.
I think that’s the main sort of way of surviving mentally through all this lockdown and being stuck in one place for a long time.
I’ve been writing, as always, this time on a previous project, it’s a sequel to a book I’ve already got out, and it’s been hanging around for ages.
I’ve decided that one of the things I am going to do this year, which I’ve set intentions to do, is to finish off all my partially written projects I’ve got quite a lot. It’s low hanging fruit.
In other words, it’s easy to do, rather than start really from scratch and go through absolutely every aspect of it. It’s also going to clear out a lot of [virtual] clutter that I’ve got hanging around.
We’ve spoken about this before, about if you don’t keep things moving, and it gets stagnant, it can be really bad for your mental health.
I don’t like clutter.
One of my intentions this year is to get rid of all the things that have been hanging around for ages and not finished, I’m going to get some finishing energy, which is hard for me, because I’m just starting off energy, but I’ll get through that.
I’ve been reading a lot of books as well.
And I’ve changed my website now. I will put a link in the show notes to my book page, because I’m upping my game on marketing this year as well.
Don’t forget, you can support this podcast now on Patreon.
After this episode, I’m going to be recording exclusive content.
If you have any questions or anything you need addressing, let me know and I will try and include that in the episodes on Patreon for my supporters, so thank you for that.
And now we’ll get back on to the main topic of setting intentions for 2021.
I was gonna subtitle it, ‘don’t forget to include a stretch goal.’ But sounds a bit boring, so it isn’t it that, the subtitle of this one is actually
‘How to move forward actually achieve things.’
Because so many people set New Year’s intentions and turn over a new leaf, then by the end of January and February, they’ve forgotten what it was.
One of the things I will include in this is writing things down, make yourself accountable.
To start with intentions, Simon Sinek, and I’ll come on to him in the book recommendation, has got the third most popular TED Talk ever. I don’t know if you watch TED talks or listen to them, but definitely look at that within 2021.
Any subject you want, there will be TED talk about it, and it’s a really good way to self educate and to keep growing, which we all need to do. We all need to keep moving forward.
Simon Sinek came up with ‘the why’ that you should always start with your why, why you do something, a company needs to look at this for business.
You need to look at why you’re doing things, what is important to you, what is your why?
It might be family, it might be security, might be a legacy, there’s so many different things.
I won’t go through them all now. But write down why you’re doing this.
I have my WHY printed on an A4 piece of paper on the notice board. I’ve actually got two, one relates totally to business, and one relates totally to my family.
So it’s okay to have two with regards to your intentions.
I’d like you to think about three words that are going to sum up your year ahead.
4:40
Mine are productive, leaner, and greener.
I think they sum up my business and my personal life because I do want it to be productive.
I want to get things out there. And whether that be growing vegetables or publishing books, you know, I want to be productive.
It is what inspires me to do things.
Think of three words for your year ahead.
I’d love to hear what they are as well. Don’t forget to share them.
Something I’ve done for years, is come up with three ways that I’m going to push my boundaries.
I used to be scared of a lot of things like bridges and heights, and I’m still very nervous, don’t get me wrong. I have really pushed my boundaries with regards to those. And one year, I did have that I would overcome my fear of bridges. I did that by walking over bridges, especially Humber bridge, which actually moves when it’s windy, which is a bit scary, because it’s a very long bridge.
So think of three ways maybe that you’re going to push your boundaries this year.
What are you going to do to really move yourself forward and stop holding yourself back and procrastinating?
Just a few of the topics you can consider with regards to your goals: money, work, personal growth, creativity, get the idea, it’s up to you.
I’m not gonna tell you how you’ve got to set your goals, they’re just a few of the headings you might want to think about.
Go grab a massive big piece of paper and start mind mapping and scribbling away and come up with what you want to achieve this year.
Like I said, at the beginning, don’t forget to include at least one really stretch goal. Be adaptable because last year more than any has proved to we need to be adaptable, and be open to new ideas.
Who would have thought if you’re, for example, a clothing company, who would have thought that within a year you would have a whole new line of face masks and safety gear?
You might have moved from creating children’s clothes into creating scrubs for health workers who would have imagined that at the beginning of the year?
Always be open to new ideas and keep an eye on trends, and what’s coming up in the future, and on the news and be open to that.
These are not things that you’re going to set in stone.
They don’t all have to be work goals.
It is a lot better to write them down. But be open.
I did a whole episode on smart goals. So I’m not going to go through that now. I’ll put a link in the show notes, it was Episode 11, about smart goals.
And also multiple income streams for writers which is relevant if that is appealing to that was Episode 12.
I’m on a mission, obviously to get everybody writing. And that’s definitely included in my intentions for 2021 to continue encouraging people to write their story and write their book. And I covered that in episode 8.
And from setting intentions for the year ahead, you might want to be looking at getting a morning routine. And getting up earlier and doing something a bit more motivational first thing in the morning. I covered that in Episode 14.
Why don’t you go back and just re listen to those?
Okay. The final point I’ll come to on intentions and goals for the year.
Don’t forget to reward yourself along the way.
Introduced some.
Maybe if I’ve reached this goal, I’m going to treat myself to this, you’d have to write it down.
If necessary, you might just say these are the rewards I want to achieve this year.
I think it helps if you actually reward yourself for a job well done.
Scheduling, audit and review dates.
Make sure you write these down. And also include maybe at the end of each month or the beginning of each month, a review date in your diary with an alarm to remind you that you need to revisit those goals.
Are you on track?
Have you fallen behind or are you way ahead?
Maybe if you’re going to achieve all your goals by the middle of the year, you can add some more on, it’s not being greedy or over ambitious to adjust those goals upwards.
9:04
And finally, book recommendation.
‘Start With Why’ by Simon Sinek.
I mentioned him earlier about starting with why. And I think the book is definitely worth reading. So I’ll include the link.
If you don’t want to read the full book, go to his TED Talk.
Definitely. And I would recommend that anyway.
Okay, so I hope that’s helped just a little bit with thinking about the year ahead, be open to ideas be open to new things.
More than anything 2020 has taught us that we’ve no idea what the future brings. But we can control it [or at least our response to it] and we can get through it.
And community is more than ever is important.
So if you want community, don’t forget to jump into my Facebook groups, really get involved and promote what your intention is intending to do in 2021.
So have a wonderful year.
Let me know at least one of your stretch goals.
Catch me on Patreon and I’ll see you next time. Thanks for joining me. Bye