2024 Didn’t Start as Planned? Fix It in 5 Simple Steps
Chances are, you had high hopes for the new year (again) and it didn’t work out as you imagined.
Do you feel like you didn’t get the traction you need?
Do you wish to be more consistent in what you planned?
Does life seem unfair to you because others are ahead?
Don’t give up just yet! Instead, fix your bad start to 2024 by following these 5 steps.
Step 1: Find out what went wrong
Best case: you know exactly what’s not working.
Worst case: you only have a feeling of what’s not working.
You need to know, what isn’t working. This means you have to sit down and overthink why you are, where you are right now.
For that, start asking yourself where you are right now. And where you’d like to be. Find out the discrepancy.
Then, write down what differs.
Be crystal clear and brutally honest about it.
When you can’t hold yourself accountable, probably no one else can.
When you know, what’s wrong, write it down.
Don’t just “remember” it, only to forget about it, as soon as you start looking at your phone. Write it down.
Hold yourself accountable and make what went wrong available for revision.
Knowing what went wrong is key to start improving on it.
Step 2: Set clear and attainable goals
Chances are, you failed because you didn’t have clear and attainable goals.
Why do you want clear goals?
It’s simple: when you don’t know what you want, you don’t know what to do. Instead, define exactly what you want.
What does that look like in practice?
My clear goal for January is intermittent fasting between 8pm and 12pm every single weekday. No excuses. It’s straight-forward and achievable.
Why do you want attainable goals?
Without attainable goals, you don’t have any motivation to keep pushing.
Don’t aim for the moon, if you don’t have a rocket.
I could set myself a goal to get a six-pack in January. But it won’t happen. Why? Because the timeframe is unrealistic.
Instead, make it practical.
An attainable goal for January is losing 2 kg (4lbs). It needs some effort from my side, but I know I can definitely achieve that.
Now, for you:
Don’t set making a new habit as a goal for the first month. Why? Because it takes around 66 days (more than two months) to fully implement a new habit.
Instead, make it more precise and practicable: aim for 3 exercise days per week.
Clear and attainable goals are more than just goals. They help you to stay motivated and keep pushing. Write them down, to hold yourself accountable.
Step 3: Establish a sustainable plan
Setting goals is only the beginning.
Now, you need a sustainable plan. It’s good, even great, to have clear and attainable goals. But you need to make their pursuit sustainable long-term.
That’s because:
- Your motivation will fluctuate.
- You’ll get distracted.
- And because life just happens.
How can you do that?
Make a habit out of everything.
If you want to drink lemon juice to boost your immune system, make it a habit.
If you want to write, make it a habit.
If you want to meet new friends, make it a habit.
If you want to have new habits, make it a habit.
But give yourself some time.
Choose what you want to start with. Give yourself a head-start of three weeks and only then, start doing something else.
Why?
Because trying to build multiple habits at the same time is often too difficult to sustain. And then you’ll end up doing nothing and feeling horrible about it.
Define a sustainable plan and stack different habits to profit long-term.
Step 4: Develop resilience
Let me get this straight: you’ll encounter setbacks in the pursuit of improving your life. No matter what you want to improve.
Before I finally found a sustainable way to get in shape, I hit many plateaus, gained unnecessary weight, lost my motivation, and thought about quitting.
Before I finally started earning my living online, I earned little, tried different 9 to 5 jobs, had no idea, what I was doing, and repeated all of the above a couple of times.
Now, it all makes (some) sense.
But before, it didn’t.
Most success coaches aren’t telling you one universal truth.
Becoming successful involves a lot of pain. Growing means pain.
Often, you’ll feel like you don’t have any idea, what you’re doing. But that’s how it is supposed to feel. That’s what everybody feels like, as soon as he steps out of his comfort zone.
The good thing? You can do something about it.
What?
It’s called resilience.
It’s your ability to overcome setbacks.
And it’s not only key to becoming successful. It’s key to enjoying your life, too.
Often, life throws curveballs. It’s just part of the game. But this doesn’t mean it has to suck (that hard).
There are two simple ways to develop resilience:
- You embrace the idea that there’s only so much you can control.
- You awaken the little child in yourself and keep trying over and over again.
If you can combine both, you become unstoppable.
Resilience isn’t only a virtue, it’s a life-saver.
Step 5: Track your progress and adjust accordingly
Make trial and error your new best friend.
It’s not enough to have some sense of how you keep improving. You need proof, you really do.
For some things, it’s easier to know, like:
- You’re losing weight, which is good if you want to get in shape.
- You’re gaining weight, which is good if you want to bulk.
- You see people reading your stories, which is good to get your name out there.
For others, it isn’t. But this doesn’t mean you can’t try and improve on things.
If you keep repeating what you do, you’ll develop some understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Then you can develop KPIs to find out if you’re heading in the right direction.
But don’t make the mistake I did. Don’t get obsessed with the numbers.
When I started working out, I’d weigh myself every single day. As soon as I started gaining weight again, I panicked because I feared gaining instead of losing weight. I felt like a loser.
It took me another couple of months to realize: that fluctuation is normal.
Don’t get obsessed with the numbers.
Get obsessed with the process. Learn to enjoy what you’re doing and improve on it. How?
Repetition.
Do something often enough and you’ll stop worrying about the numbers. Why?
Because you’ll focus more on the process and start enjoying what you do.
Track your progress, improve on it, and enjoy what you’re doing.
To summarize: If 2024 didn’t start as planned, get back on track by following five simple steps:
- find out what went wrong
- set clear and attainable goals
- establish a sustainable plan
- develop resilience
- track your progress, improve on it, and enjoy what you’re doing
