AMY HANSEN

January is a great time for new beginnings and setting your intentions for the year ahead.  One of the best ways to set your intentions for the year ahead is to pick a word of the year.  This word should empower you to achieve your goals.  Here are five steps to help you in choosing your word of the year.

Dream

Give yourself permission to dream.  Close your eyes and just allow your mind to run wild.  Visualize the year ahead and what amazing things you want to make happen.  Nothing is too big or too small.  See who you’re with, what you’re doing, and most of all, how you’re feeling.  Take the next few minutes to get in touch with your hopes, goals, dreams, and aspirations for this year.

Vision

Next, write down what you saw in your vision.  Write down what sorts of things you want to achieve and how you were feeling in your vision.  Maybe you felt proud, accomplished, excited, happy, etc.  Think...

In order to achieve your goals in the new year, you’re going to need to let go of a few things that have been holding you back.  Leave behind what’s not serving you so that you can step into the new year with a clear, fresh, and focused mind.  Here are five things to let go of this year.

Validation

The first thing you’re going to need to let go of is seeking validation from others.  Stop looking for approval from other people before taking action towards your goals.  What someone else thinks has no bearing on what you can achieve.  Constantly searching for approval will only hinder your progress towards achieving your goals.  Don’t let others limit what you can and cannot do.  Instead, focus on what you want and what you’re working towards.  Find your own internal acceptance by loving who you are and being proud of yourself for what you can achieve.

Worry

One of the biggest things you’ll need...

As the year winds down, now is the perfect time to reflect over the past year and figure out how you need to show up in the new year in order to achieve the goals that you’ve set.  Take a deep look at who you are being and what you need to do differently in the new year.  Here are three steps to help you do just that.

Who You’ve Been Being

Start by focusing on who you’ve been being over this past year.  Think about how you have shown up for yourself and your goals.  Maybe you’ve done things that have pushed you outside your comfort zone.  You may have expanded your comfort zone by putting yourself out there and trying some new things that you’ve never done before.  Or, perhaps you held yourself back by letting the fear, worry, and self doubt prevent you from achieving your goals.  Reflect back over this past year to truly take a look at who you have been being and how you have been showing up in your life.

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As the new year approaches, it’s time to assess where you are and decide where you want to be in the new year.  Here is a five step process to help you focus on setting a new goal for next year. 

Figure Out Where You Are

Begin with where you are right now.  Complete an assessment of your life and figure out where you are.  Ask yourself if you are where you thought you’d be.  A whole year has passed.  You may have achieved your goals this past year or perhaps you didn’t quite make it.  Whatever is the case, take a moment to assess where you are with your goals so that you know where you’re starting from in the new year.

Life Areas

Next, consider how you feel about all different areas of your life from personal to professional.  Perhaps you’re feeling happy, exhilarated, and fulfilled.  Or, maybe you’ll feeling stuck, frustrated, and overwhelmed.  Think about what has made you feel this...

As this year winds down, you may be thinking you’re not quite where you thought you’d be.  You may have set some goals for yourself that you didn’t quite manage to reach this year.  Or, maybe life took a completely different direction because of certain challenges.  Don’t get disheartened.  Instead, here is what you can do when you didn’t achieve your goals this year.

What Didn’t You Achieve

Start by taking a look at what you wanted to achieve but didn’t.  Assess the goals you set for yourself and the progress you made this year.  Perhaps that’s a lack of progress.  Acknowledge where you are.  But, don’t beat yourself up and feel bad.  You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

What Held You Back

Next, ask yourself what got in the way of you not being able to achieve your goals this year.  Perhaps you faced some external or internal challenges.  Maybe...

As you approach the end of the year, it’s a great time to reflect over what accomplishments you’ve had this year.  No matter how big or small, you have something to be proud of.  It may be hard to recognize at first, but there are things that happened this year that you can be extremely proud of.  Whether it’s how you responded in a particular situation or life long memories you created, there are plenty of accomplishments you’ve achieved this year.  Let’s review your yearly accomplishments.

Accomplishments

Start by writing down what amazing things happened this year.  These could be goals that you achieved whether personal or professional.  It may be incredible moments that you’ll remember for a lifetime.  Fun times with friends and family.  Memories and major milestones that light you up, make you happy, smile, and feel proud.  Or difficult times where you persevered to become stronger, wiser,...

Finding gratitude can bring a lot of love, happiness, and light into your life.  This is especially helpful if you’re struggling to achieve your goals or just feeling a bit down about your progress.  When you’re going through a difficult time, it can be refreshing to remind yourself of the things that you are grateful for.  These don’t have to be big things.  They can be small things or tiny moments of time.  Here are five areas of gratitude to lift your spirts so that you’ll be inspired to take action and achieve your goals.

Dreaming In Nature

You can find gratitude in nature.  Nature provides a ton of beautiful landscapes to draw gratitude from.  From the morning sunrise, a flowing waterfall, snow capped mountains, a mossy green forest, to the sunset and shining moon.  These nature scenes can provide you with a sense of relaxation, peace, and escape.  Take in scenery and close your eyes.  Allow...

Unwavering belief is when you believe in something without a shadow of a doubt.  This is usually a desired outcome that you want to achieve.  Whether it’s a goal that you set for yourself or just something that you want to have happen in your life.  Nothing else becomes an option when you have unwavering belief.  You consistently believe without wavering on your perspective that this will occur.  Yet, there are many times that test your belief and attempt to cause your belief to waver.  Here is how to have unwavering belief.

Wavering Belief Causes

Often things get put in your path that cause your belief to waver.  Fear, self doubt, and worry creep in.  You start to second guess your belief because things aren’t going the way you had hoped.  Perhaps you’re not seeing the progress you thought would happen by now.  Or, life is going in a completely different direction than what you had intended.  Maybe...

Curiosity makes life fun and interesting.  It gives you something to work towards and pulls you into the future with the wonder, excitement, and zest for life.  Being curious builds confidence, courage, and provides you with the evidence you need to achieve your goals.  There are three areas you can focus on to develop a curiosity mindset to achieve your goals.

Knowledge

Choose a particular topic you want to learn more about that will help you to achieve your goals.  Perhaps that’s learning a new skill, taking up a new hobby, or just information about a subject that you want to know more about.  Learn how to do yoga, study meditation techniques, or research how to get better sleep.  When you learn something new it helps you build your confidence so that you’ll be in the right mindset to tackle the difficult tasks required to achieve your goals.  Engross yourself in the material related to the topic you choose.  Watch videos,...

In order to achieve your goal, you need to be curious.  Curiosity pulls you into the future.  You don’t know exactly how your life is going to go, but you’re curious to see what happens.  This curiosity helps you overcome fear, worry, and self doubt because you’re curious to see how it turns out.  Even if things don’t go exactly as you had planned or hoped, you’re curious enough to keep moving forward and see how it all ends up.  Here are four areas to help you be curious about your future so that you can achieve your goals.

Future Life

Be curious about finding out what life will be like once you’ve achieved your goal.  Envision yourself in the future when you’ve achieved your goal.  See what you’re doing, who is with you, where you are, and what’s going on.  Really surround yourself with this vision and get crystal clear about that future point in time.  Tune into what it feels...