New Year’s Day is one of the most celebrated holidays of the year. Celebrated by get-togethers, fireworks, and toasts at midnight, it can be a literal reset button for many. A fresh start, a new perspective, a way to finally take that leap of faith.
Although 2021 is already showing us that a fresh year doesn’t mean fewer problems it’s not too late to change the narrative of your life, even if you didn’t start right on the 1st!
If you listen to my podcast, “Betting On Yourself,” there’s a common theme that ties many of my guests together.
They didn’t succeed on their first try, their tenth try, or even their thousandth (I know I didn’t either).
They constantly reinvented themselves, their ideas, their business, their position to get where they are today.
So how did they start? How do YOU start? Changing the narrative of your life can be the catalyst for so many things.
Assess Your Situation
Take a look at your life right now.
Do you like what you see? Is there anything about your life you want to change?
If so, why do you want to change? Where do you see yourself growing from this change?
Ask yourself these questions and reflect on what will bring you happiness. This may take awhile and don’t rush it.
If you end up reflecting on your situation for the next 3 months, that’s great! If you’ve been thinking about it for awhile and you already know, that’s great too.
True peace doesn’t come without inner reflection though, so be intentional about it.
For me, a lot of inner reflection took place as my basketball career was coming to close. I had to think long and hard about what would make me happy in the next chapter of my life, where my passions were, and what was best for my family.
Make a List
This one seems simple, right? How important could writing it down possibly be?
But doing so will hold you accountable. It’s so easy to come up with goals, dreams, and next steps in the moment. To get invigorated and ready to execute with dates and times correlated to everything.
I know myself though, and if I don’t hold myself accountable no one else will.
Writing down all of those ideas helps to solidify what needs to happen and when. You can keep it in a desk drawer, in your bedroom night table, or hang it up on your refrigerator.
If changing your life is important, this piece of paper should be in a place you look at often. This serves as a daily reminder of where you are and where you want to go.
Get Buy-In
Who is part of your day-to-day life? A spouse, sibling, child, parent, best friend, neighbor? Who are those people who know you?
Tell them about what you want in your life. While inner reflection is important for goal-setting, outer sharing is equally important for achievement.
Through sharing your journey you may even find an accountability partner. From my experience, having a team share a common goal helps motivate me and keep me going.
Let Yourself Fail
I’ve discussed failure with many of my guests on Betting On Yourself. I’ve even written about it before. It’s okay to fail. If you don’t give yourself a break, who will?
Besides breeding courage, bringing change and growing faith, failure reminds us that we are human. Just remember that failure is just a moment, it’s not forever. Take a moment, wallow if you need to, but get back up and don’t stop getting back up.
Most importantly, start changing your life (if that’s what you want) whenever you feel like it! Don’t wait for a holiday, new year, new city, new anything to get started on what YOU want.
“We have to let go of who we think we should be and embrace what is.” – Achea Redd
That’s a key theme of the latest episode of my podcast, “Betting on Yourself,” where I talk with Ira Sharfin. One of the turning points in his life came when he learned to embrace mistakes and see them as opportunities, not just failures.
Listen to that episode here, and subscribe to my email list to stay connected with me and never miss an update.