The New Year – a magnificent time of boundless potential and opportunity! It’s a moment brimming with promise, where we set our sights on our grandest goals and dare to dream bigger.
However, as the initial sparkle of the New Year fades, so often does our fervor. Success is not just about setting goals; it’s about igniting a fire within that burns all year long. Today I’m here to guide you through transforming your aspirations into enduring achievements.
Let’s dive into how you can maintain an unstoppable motivation, overcome any obstacle, shift your mindset, and cultivate life-changing habits!
Unstoppable New Year Mindset Hacks
You could have the biggest goal, the biggest “Why” behind your goal and still struggle with finding your way to the finish line. If you can adopt the following three mindset shifts, nothing will stop you from reaching your goals!
1. Cultivate a Growth Mindset: A growth mindset is founded on the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work. This perspective embraces challenges, perseveres through obstacles, sees effort as the path to mastery, and learns from criticism. It fosters a love for learning and resilience.
In contrast, a fixed mindset assumes that intelligence and talents are static traits that cannot be significantly developed. Individuals with a fixed mindset may avoid challenges, give up easily when confronted with obstacles, see effort as fruitless, and feel threatened by the success of others. As a result, they may plateau early and not achieve their full potential.
Take home message: Adopt a growth mindset, NOT a fixed mindset!
2. Love the Journey: It’s not just the destination but the journey that shapes you. I know so corny and you’ve heard it a thousand times, but it is TRUE! Relish each step, each struggle, and each triumph. This perspective turns the pursuit into an adventure.
3. Live in Gratitude and Mindfulness: Every day is a gift! Practicing gratitude and mindfulness roots you in the present and fuels your journey with positivity and peace. Just this tip alone can seriously change your life. Don’t believe me? Take up a gratitude prompt journal or guided meditation for 30-60 days and tell me it doesn’t improve your quality of your every day life.
Overcome Challenges with Unshakeable Resilience
Challenges are inevitable. As much as a pain in the butt they can be sometimes, you MUST be met with challenges, otherwise how else will you grow and become a better version of yourself?
Here are my three hacks to overcoming future challenges to reaching your biggest health goals:
1. It’s all about the small steps: New Year New You dreams are great, but big achievements are made of small victories. Chop up those mammoth goals into bite-sized, achievable actions. I often set 1% goals with my clients, meaning, giving them the ability to take a proactive step in action that would be a 1% improvement in the area they are working on. To the brain it feels so achievable, so they do it, succeed, and build momentum from there.
2. Be a Master Problem Solver: Every challenge is an opportunity to showcase your brilliance. You’ll need to develop a toolkit of problem-solving skills and watch yourself conquer hurdles like a champ. Here’s the raw truth: You won’t necessarily HAVE the problem-solving skills at the time and may have to build them! Hire a coach, listen to a podcast or book, or educate up on the area you might not quite be a master of yet.
3. Build Your Tribe: Nobody achieves greatness alone. Surround yourself with motivators, mentors, and cheerleaders who fuel your journey. Sadly, this may mean outside of your circle you would hope would be your tribe. Sometimes family and partners don’t give us everything we need, and that’s ok. It’s your responsibility to get the support elsewhere if that’s the case.
Set Realistic Expectations
Listen up my Type A personalities…I know you want the process of reaching your New Year New You goals to be a straight shot, a straight, linear upward trend of progress, completely and fully predictable. Well my friend, it isn’t going to turn out that way, so let’s make sure you set realistic expectations from the start so your perfectionism doesn’t sabotage you – AGAIN.
1. Dream Big, Start Small: Set goals that excite you but start with steps that feel manageable. This balance keeps you driven without being overwhelmed. (psst…are you noticing the multiple times in this article I emphasize “small” steps?)
2. Be Flexible: Life is unpredictable. Be ready to adapt your goals as needed. Flexibility isn’t a setback; it’s a strategy. You will have interruptions. You will have “off days”. You will have periods of time that just aren’t flowing the way you want it to. This is not the time to give up, rather dig your heels in and weather the storm. To sustain your success involves being able to be flexible, call the audible when needed, sometimes simply hold on while you weather that storm.
13. Be Patient with Yourself: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your dreams won’t be realized overnight. Celebrate progress, not just perfection. This will be a tough one for many, but it’s one of the biggest skills you can build. When you want to beat yourself up over making a mistake, ask yourself, “What would I say to my child if this was him or her?” or “What would I say to my partner or best friend?” You’ll snap out of that boo hoo party and straight into the supporter you need to be for YOU.
More Tips To Building A FOREVER Healthy Lifestyle
When it comes to creating a healthier lifestyle, that isn’t going to come from an 8 week juice diet. We need serious approaches if we want serious results that STICK. Here are a few more lifestyle tips to keep in mind. At first glance, they aren’t anything flashy or fancy, in fact – they are kind of boring! But I promise, the boring practices, NOT the flashy, are what you need to WIN.
1. Say YES to YOU: Prioritize yourself. When you’re at your best, you perform at your best. This isn’t selfish; it’s essential. Nobody can carve our 10 minutes for you. YOU have to make it happen. Keep in mind not everything you devote your time to has to have a sense of urgency or deadline. Just because it may not have a deadline, does not make it LESS important.
2. Design a Power Routine: Atomic Habits author James Clear states, “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” Routines are a fundamental aspect of building good habits and breaking bad ones. His approach is grounded in the idea that small, incremental changes lead to significant long-term results. Here are some key points Clear makes about the importance of routines:
Start with Small Changes: Implement tiny habits that are so easy you can’t say no. This could be as simple as doing five push-ups a day or writing one sentence of your journal.
Build Habit Stacking: Piggyback new habits onto existing ones. After brushing your teeth, immediately do a two-minute meditation. This linkage creates a powerful routine.
Focus on Consistency Over Perfection: It’s about showing up every day, not about being perfect. Missing a day isn’t a failure; it’s a part of the process.
Create an Environment for Success: Tailor your surroundings to make good habits effortless and bad ones difficult. If you want to read more, keep a book on your bedside table.
3. Track and Celebrate: Keep your eyes on your progress, and don’t forget to throw a party for every milestone you hit! Don’t wait to celebrate until the end, you won’t have enough fire to get you to the finish line with this approach.
Let this New Year be a testament to your unstoppable will, unbreakable spirit, and unyielding drive. With the right mindset, a plan to navigate through storms, and habits that uplift and empower, there’s no summit too high. Remember, motivation is a flame that thrives on your actions, thoughts, and indomitable will. Let this year be defined by not just dreaming of greatness but living it every single day. Here’s to a year of monumental growth, unwavering motivation, and life-changing achievements!
Author Shelby McDaniel
Hi! I’m Shelby and I’m a food lovin’ nutritionist but…I’m not a regular nutritionist. I’m an intuitive eating specialist, eating psychology practitioner, and Certified Mind Body Nutrition Coach, here to free you from diet culture once and for all! Because you deserve peace with food, eating, and your body. (Yes, I'm talking to YOU!)
