None of us can help thinking about the goals we want to set in the new year, but what I want to talk to you about is the 5 habits you need to start now in order to make the next year, the next decade a successful one.

Watch here or read below.

I don’t know about you, but there is a big difference between living 10 years and living the same year 10 times in a row. So in honor of starting off your next 10 years on the right foot, I would love for you to drop me a comment and let me know how you’d like the next decade to be different from the last one.

I want to share 5 habits that I want you to start now. These are things that are going to help you to not just live the same year over and over again, but to really help you see progress in your goals and in your life, how you want things to look, and where you want to go.

Habit #1 – Put the Big Rocks First

Habit number one is to put the Big Rocks first.

Now I’ve talked in another blog – and many other blogs actually – about Big Rocks, but in case you don’t know what they are, this is the idea of putting large rocks in a jar first and then putting small rocks in around it, and then sand, and then water. These things represent the different things in our life.

The big rocks represent the most important things in our life like our:

• Health
• Relationships
• Long-term goals

But what happens is we tend to put these things on the back burner.

Because they’re big, they feel difficult to fit in. We feel like we need more time or space for them, so we put them on the back burner and instead we do it in reverse. We put the water in the jar first, and then we put in things like sand and little rocks, and by the time we get to the top, there’s no room for the big rocks.

If we learn to shift this and turn this around and put the Big Rocks first in our day, and in our week, we will actually start to get things done.

And I know it’s a little crazy. It feels like, “if I schedule everything I need for my health, everything I need for my relationships, and everything I need for my long-term goals, I’m not going to have time to get anything else done. When do you clean and cook? When do you answer emails or answer phone calls? “

But I promise you if you will follow this, it’s like magic how it works. When you put the Big Rocks in first, everything else that is important will fit in around it. The unimportant stuff will take care of itself.

I want you to start implementing this habit now, BEFORE the new year (or the new decade).

Because what happens is we set our goals, and we say we’re going to work on them, but when that time actually comes around, if our schedule is still filled with little rocks, or sand, or water, we’re not going to have time for those big important things. Our goals are usually the Big Rocks.

So sit down, and look at your week. Figure out “where can I put these things in my week?” And remember, you don’t necessarily have to have more time allotted to them than everything else. You just have to make sure that you have carved out the time for them first so everything else can fit in around it.

Habit #2 – Self-Care Audit

Number two is a self-care audit, and you guys know that I love to preach about self-care.

The reason for this is that the most important tool in your toolbox, the most important tool in your business, the most important tool in your life is your health. If you don’t have the energy and the vitality to do the things you want to do to show up in the way you want to show up, you ain’t going to do it. It’s just not going to happen, so you get to be taking care of yourself.

This is one of those Big Rocks that we get to schedule in first, but what I want you to start doing before you set these self-care goals is to do the self-care audit.

So look at:

• What’s working, and why is it working?
• What’s not working, and why is it not working?
• What can I do, or what needs to happen in order to make shifts around these things? For instance, if you know that you want to start exercising, what’s getting in the way of you exercising now?

The reason that I want you to start planning for these things now is because if you have a goal of exercising in the new year, but you’re not doing the audit between now and then to look at all of the obstacles that might come up because there’s going to be a lot of them, right?

Let’s be realistic. This isn’t Pollyanna land. We don’t get to just wishful think these things away. There’s going to be challenges and obstacles and current habits, current routines that are going to make this really difficult for you. So giving yourself a couple of weeks to be proactive, to look at your life now to look at, “if I were to be exercising today, what might get in the way of that?”

This is going to help you to be really proactive in planning a routine or a schedule or self-care that’s actually going to work, that’s going to be able to stick.

Remember if you fail to plan, you plan to fail

I know that this can be a struggle for a lot of people, and if it is a struggle for you, I have a free mini mindset training all around the topic of self-care. It even includes a list of ways that you can start filling your cup in as little as 30 seconds.

Habit #3 – Weekly Check-in

The third habit to start to before the new year is a weekly check in with your goals.

Yes. Before you even start working on your goals, I want you to start scheduling time for this check-in so that you can get into this routine, so that it’s going to help you to sustain the next routine.

Now, this can be something that you schedule on your calendar, and I recommend that you do that so that you can protect that time and schedule things around it just like your big rocks, right? But also put it in something like your task manager. If you use Asana or ClickUp, have it repeating every week so that you can keep a couple of questions in there to allow you to go through them really quickly, and do this weekly check in. And I have some questions for you.

The first question you can ask yourself is:

“How much time did I work on my goal or my big rocks this week?” So this allows you to do an ongoing time audit to really see, “am I spending enough time in these areas?”

The next question is:

“What helped me to work on my goals or my big rocks this week? What got in my way?”

These two questions are really about awareness of what’s working and what’s not working. As you start to notice those things, you can start to make the changes necessary.

The next question is:

“What can I try differently next week to get better results?”

So once you have that awareness, then you want to look at what can I actually put into action to either increase what’s working or decrease what’s not working.

And then lastly you want to ask:

“What is my plan for next week?”

So you want to look at not just the what, but also the how and the when. So you’re scheduling out your week.

You’re looking exactly at:

• What you want to be doing
• When in your schedule you’re going to put it
• How you want to do it
• Is there something you need to prepare for it?
• Is there a certain way you want to show up in it?

So again, just doing some of that proactive planning week by week to keep you on track. This honestly has been one of my biggest keys to success.

I know that it sounds like it might just be added work, but it only takes 5 or 10 minutes. The awareness and the breakthroughs that are going to come through that 5-10 minutes, and the progress you’re going to make on your goals through that little 5 to 10 minute check in every week is freaking phenomenal.

So whatever you do, please don’t skip this. I want to encourage you to try this out for the next month, the next three months, and really see yourself getting on track as you start to actually work on your goals.

Habit #4 – A mindset routine

The fourth habit to start before you start working on your goals is a mindset routine.

Specifically, one that’s:

• created to address your goals
• will help you show up in those goals
• to help you feel amazing
• support you in overcoming any blocks, any beliefs, any limiting ideas or fears you might have around those goals
• and help you really just go into that making some progress, because you’re feeling amped. You’re feeling energized. You feel ready and prepared internally, not just externally.

Habit #5 – Start now

The fifth habit to start before the new year is your new year goals, your resolutions, the thing that you want to work on in the next year/decade… Start those things now, and here’s why…

It’s going to allow you to get traction and gain momentum before you’ve technically started. So that if you have some slip ups, challenges, or run into some of those obstacles, not only is it going to help you to plan better for the new year, but it’s going to allow you to not get discouraged, because you haven’t actually started yet.

So you’re gaining momentum without having to worry about losing motivation.

Are you ready to uplevel your mindset as you dive into the new year?

I encourage you to check out my FREE guide Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs training to learn more about my process.

You can learn more here or grab it by clicking the button below.

What about you, Boss lady?

I’d love to hear what resolutions and goals YOU will be setting for the new decade. What steps you are going to take TODAY to set yourself up for success!