Make 2021 Your Best Year
No matter if 2020 was your best or worst year ever, it’s now in our rearview mirror. As we usher into 2021, let’s look at some strategies to make it your best year yet.
Adjust your mindset
Entering into any new situation, a new job, a new home, or even a new day, we start with our mindset. If our mindset is negative, our experience will be shrouded in that negativity. No matter how positive the experience actually becomes, if we start with a negative mindset, everything we do is a reflection of that.
On the other hand, if our mindset is positive, our experience will lean towards positivity. That doesn’t mean everything will be perfect or even easy. It means, we will find the silver lining.
Adjusting our mindset to positive is not easy; it takes practice, time, and effort. Consider adding these strategies to your day:
- Establish a positive mantra to guide each week (or each day if you’re feeling ambitious).
- Post that somewhere to start your day and recite it out loud 5-10 times.
- Throughout your day, take 5 minutes 5-10 times to note something good from the day (you heard your favorite song, your dogs didn’t bark while you were on a Zoom call, your kids ate their vegetables).
- Each evening, reflect on those good things that you jotted down in the same place.
- Share at least one win from the day on social media.
- Share at least one win from the day with a friend.
- Share at least one win from the day with a family member.
These strategies will become habits. They’ll be easier some days than others, but they will adjust your mindset.
Strategize your goals
Goal setting is an obvious strategy to help anyone prepare for a new year, but you should also consider strategizing more than simply setting goals. Strategizing takes that goal and injects an action plan to accomplish it. Consider adding these strategies to your strategic goal setting:
- Set 3-5 goals
- For each goal, create 3-5 action steps
- For each action step, set benchmarks (reference points–time benchmark/proximity benchmark)
- For each benchmark, find an accountability partner
- Celebrate small when you meet a benchmark or an action step
- Celebrate big when you meet a goal
Your strategy is everything after setting the goal so revisit and adjust it as often as you need to.
Prepare your shifts
2020 introduced the mother of all shifts, right? For most of us, the sheer amount of shifts was almost as insurmountable as the types of shifts. Ultimately, it taught us that we can shift. So we should prepare for those shifts. There are several smart ways to prepare yourself for potential shifts in 2021 (and to avoid being caught off-guard). Consider adding these strategies to your plan:
- Identify each process for regular tasks at work and at home (“This is how I… cold call clients, update my website, prepare for a sitter….”)
- Create if…then scenarios (“If this happens, then this will happen….”) for as many of those tasks as possible
- Consider “If we go 100% remote again, then….”
- Consider, “If I get sick, then….”
- Consider, “If all of our Internet is down, then….”
- Use those processes to create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for work and home
- Review those SOPs with the appropriate people (work with boss, assistant, or colleagues; home with significant other, parent, sibling, or friend)
- Keep those SOPs handy and revise them as needed
Not only does this process prepare you (mentally and organizationally) but it also sets up how you conduct your life. Knowing the details of how you run your world may help you see any issues in your systems or highlight ways that you can improve upon them.
2021 will be better than 2020 if you adjust your mindset, strategize your goals, and prepare your shifts. What strategies do you have to share how 2021 can be the best year yet?