How to Set Yourself Up For Massive Success in 2022

The start of the new year is one of my favorites! I feel excited by the possibilities, and I get energized by the planning. I especially love pulling out a new pack of post-it notes to update my goals while reflecting on how much progress I have made over the past year. Even in years that I have struggled, I realize how far I have come when I look back.

It’s an exciting time of the year!

I haven’t always had great years. There have been entire years of my life that I rejoiced to see the end approaching, and unfortunately, the end of those years wasn’t a celebration of the year to come; it was a celebration to the end of a super craptastic 12 months of my life.

I have had some ROUGH years! Those years were fraught with challenges like my son’s autism diagnosis, my daughter’s battle with cancer, painful deployments, losing my husband to suicide, and nearly losing my daughter the same way. But significant personal growth and powerful lessons came through the challenges I faced during those years. Still, I celebrated the passage of time and said goodbye.

If you are celebrating the end of a rough year, I have great news for you…there are better years ahead.

Today, I will share some things you can do to set yourself up for success in the coming year because even though there is no way to know what the new year will bring, you can create foundations that will remain intact despite coming challenges.

Financial Foundation

There is so much stigma about talking about money! Which is crazy to me. We all need money to survive, use money as a tool, and want enough money to be comfortable. So why not get real with ourselves about our finances and make a plan?

You can start by understanding your finances and creating a financial snapshot of where you are right now.

Creating a financial snapshot of your money situation enables you to make a plan to improve through budgeting and setting goals for saving money, investing, and getting your spending under control to use money as a tool rather than letting money control you!

To get started, you can download this free workbook that gives you the step-by-step instructions to walk you through creating a snapshot of your finances to create a budget and put financial stability on your list of completed goals for 2022.

Routines

The critical element of habits that stick is making them part of a routine.

You may already be a master of your morning and night routine (if not, click here to get started), but you can create routines for legitimately anything.

For example, if you want to start a workout habit, you can make a routine of putting on your workout clothes at a specific time every day or driving to the gym at a set time.

Let’s say you get home from work every day at 5:30. You most likely have a routine without knowing it. For example, you might walk in the door, hang up your keys, pet your dog, and fill your water bottle, and then take the dog outside every day when you get home.

You can build on this by adding a change into workout clothes after you fill your water bottle.

Then, write it down and hang up a post-it note reminder on the fridge where you fill your water bottle.

Once you’re already in your workout clothes every day, it just makes sense that you would continue to build on this and add steps to the routine over time:

• Fill water bottle
• Change into workout clothes
• Grab the dog’s leash
• Take the dog outside
• Walk the dog for ten minutes after he potties

By adding just a couple of steps to an existing routine, you have created a workout habit for yourself that is easily buildable and sustainable!

You can use routines to create a journaling habit, a meditation habit, build relationships, track your eating habits, organize your home…just about anything you are looking to add as a habit to your life.

Mindset Matters

Your mindset is the number one reason you will press forward or give up when faced with challenges.

Do you see challenges as an opportunity to grow and learn? Or do you see yourself as a victim that the universe is trying to destroy every time you attempt to make positive changes in your life?

Here’s a secret…

Everyone faces resistance when they attempt to make positive changes in their life.

Your mindset determines whether you problem solve those challenges and overcome obstacles, rather than giving up because it felt too difficult.

These are some tools you can use to adjust your mindset:

• Read “Mindset” by Carol Dweck and get started down the road to developing a growth mindset.
• Use pattern interruptors like EFT/Tapping to stop the negative thoughts.
• Change the narrative in your mind with positive affirmations like, “It is safe for me to make positive changes in my life.”, or “I am worthy of an abundant life.”, or “I have the power to affect real change in my own life by continuing to work, even when it feels difficult.”
• Create a vision board
• Use a journal to get all of your emotions and worries out of your head and onto paper
• Use a journal to record all of the positive things in your life and your successes each day

You have the power to change your mindset and focus on the successes and the positive things in your life…no matter what challenges you face!

Track Your Progress

Benjamin Franklin carried a small notebook with him wherever he went. He used it to track things he was working on to measure his success objectively.

He was wildly successful at so many things in his life, and it makes me wonder if he would have seen the same success without the internal drive to progress in his personal life.

It is possible to get carried away with tracking…honestly, you don’t need to track every single thing in your life.

But if you are starting a new habit and using a reward system to help you stick to it, that would be a great habit to track to reward yourself for success.

Tracking is also appropriate when you need to measure growth that isn’t visible immediately.

For me, I started tracking the growth of A Highly Unlikely Life across multiple platforms to measure the growth of my audience. I started this practice when I felt discouraged, and I needed to give myself something visual to measure progress.

I discovered that I was growing far more than I realized…which felt super motivating and gave me the kick I needed to level up.

Look at the goals you are working on this year and decide which goals would benefit the most from tracking them, and then use a calendar or your phone to keep track of your progress.

To Wrap it up…

There are many different ways to set goals. It doesn’t matter which method you use.

What matters is setting yourself up for success by using strategies to create habits that will help you achieve your goals.

Working towards financial stability, following routines (and continually building them to incorporate goals), doing mindset work, and tracking your progress, create a solid foundation for success no matter what goals you are working on in the coming year.

I would love to know what you are working on, so drop me a comment below and let me know which strategy you will implement in the coming weeks.

xo ~ Lavena