Strategy to Make 2023 Great!
The start of the year, the best time to set yourself up for success from the get go, but how do you make 2023 the greatest year yet?
Ultimately, what you want to do is set yourself goals, or something to achieve, so that way you are not just going through life and feeling stagnant. You need to be able to meet your personal standards and feel like you are achieving things for yourself, that is the only way you can make 2023 the greatest year yet. Back in 2016, I had just started to get into a routine in the business, I was in a solid relationship and I was content, however I started putting on weight and deviating from my personal standards.
Everything from the outside looked great, I was running a partially successful business, I had an amazing girlfriend, we went overseas to the Philippines that year also and was loving life. But, I felt bored, I didn’t feel myself, I felt burnt out from work and the reason for this came down to, I had achieved everything I wanted to and stopped looking forward.
I grew comfortable, which led to me achieving the bare minimal day in, day out, which is fine if you are ok with going through the motions and just living life. However, I knew things had to change, because I was not happy and felt like I had lost my purpose.
There are a lot of people who grow content and will simply stop, plugging into entertainment to make yourself feel better, as I did. In 2016, I watched so much Anime and Netflix, it was beyond a joke, binge watching episode after episode, looking for anything to give me some dopamine (the happiness chemical in your brain) and to get me out of my lull. Scrolling social media was the worst thing, I guarantee you, my procrastination levels were ridiculously high that year, but it was all because I simply had nothing to look forward to, nothing to achieve for myself.
Of course, I had goals for the business, but because I had no personal goals, I had achieved them all, I simply just stopped.
The key here is to know yourself and to understand what is truly important to you.
I had to truly evaluate myself and I decided to do something that would take me back to who I wanted to be. I knew that when I was running I was happier, and in 2017, to turn things around, I signed myself up for a half marathon.
Just by simply signing up to the half marathon, that year alone I lost 15 kilograms and went on to lose 20 kilograms all up. I began to have a pep in my step, so to say, I had re-gained the spark of life, because I knew that I was achieving for myself again and was meeting my personal standards.
Therefore, truly to make 2023 the greatest year you have ever had, you could simply sit down and start to think, or if you are better at speaking it out, talk to your better half or a friend, about what your personal standards are.
Do you see physical health as a major priority in life?
Or do you hold yourself in high regard as a fashionista, but have not been able to afford the latest and greatest fashion?
Do you love cooking or want to look better physically, but have resorted to quick and convenient in the take-away meals?
We normally let our standards slip because we get too busy and we grow content, but if you are not happy, if you find yourself strolling through social media constantly to procrastinate, or binge-watching a heap of TV/movies, you may need to look in the mirror…
Look in the mirror and ask yourself this, “Am I truly living up to my potential and meeting my own standards?”
The most common example I came across as a personal trainer was for a new mother and father. Having a child is probably the best experience you will have in your life, or so I am told (Yet to have children of our own just yet). But it is also extremely time consuming, you begin to put all of your hopes and dreams into the child, and neglect yourself.
Your own personal standards begin to slip, and you either need to create new personal standards, or you will begin to grow unhappy. I did this, but in the business, I had enmeshed my own identity and personal standards into the business and probably my new relationship at the time. I had simply lost who I was, because my own identity was enmeshed in the business and my girlfriends.
You must remember, that you are an individual, you have your own dreams and goals, you have your own standards. To make 2023 the greatest year yet, simply think about who you are, who you want to be and set something down on paper or sign yourself up to a half-marathon like I did, if that is what you want to do.
The goal has to be for you alone, to get you back to feeling like you are achieving again, to feel like you yourself are growing as a person. No goals or aspirations for your partner or your child/ren, just write down one goal that is going to get you back to feeling like you are meeting your own standards.
One of the biggest goals I wrote down for myself was to own a home, therefore in early 2017 I had a conversation with my girlfriend (now my lovely wife) and we began to save for a house deposit. The best thing about having a partner is that you can share in the same goal, if that is what they want to also achieve personally.
But the key is that you must personally want to achieve it first, it cannot be something you just agree on to appease others, it must be your goal alone, your partner will just help you along the way to achieve it.
Now, you simply just need to set some time to yourself and begin thinking about who you truly want to be, what you want to achieve and set yourself a goal to achieve for 2023!!
Until next time,
Take Back Control
