The end of the year is fast approaching. Now is the time to strategize for 2021 and develop plans to make the next year a success. Whether you have aspirations for yourself, your business, or your health, 2021 can be a year in which you turn your hopes into realities. Today, I’m sharing my tips and strategies for how you can plan your best year yet. 

Reflect On the Past Year

Before you begin planning for next year, it’s essential to reflect on the past year and learn from your successes and challenges. Set aside time to review what you’ve accomplished in the last twelve months, what went well, where struggles happened, and what progress you made toward achieving your goals. 

Analyze the things that went well and consider which of your strategies supported your accomplishments. As for areas where you may have fallen short, think about what obstacles got in your way or what you could have done differently. Your experiences will provide you with valuable insights into what strategies and tactics will help you make 2021 a positive and productive year.

Define Your Goals

Your next step to planning your best year yet is to define your goals. Imagine yourself a year from now and where you want to be in life. What can you do in the next year to support your long-term goals and what you want to achieve in the future?

Start making notes about the goals you want to accomplish next year to help you get closer to your personal and business big picture ambitions. It helps to break your goals up into categories: personal, business, and health. This will help you organize them and visualize what you need to do to accomplish them. 

Use a Planner

People who write down their goals are 42% more likely to accomplish them. That’s because writing down and visualizing your goals helps to change them from thoughts into reality. Using a planner allows you to create and organize your goals, focus on them, and stay on track to achieving them. 

Writing down your goals also allows you to establish each goal’s tasks, your tasks, and to note milestones. That way, you know what should be done every day. My New Goal Setting Planner is the perfect resource for creating and tracking your goals. You can learn more about it below.  

Create Actionable Steps 

Goals are only intentions until you create a plan to make them happen. Putting together a plan of action for each goal will help you define what you need to do to accomplish it. It also lets you take even your biggest dreams and break them into manageable and realistic steps.

Creating an action plan for your goals gives you a map of how and when you can accomplish them. When you take the time to split your goals into smaller and more achievable tasks, you make it easier for yourself to get closer to your end goal. 

Change Your Habits & Hold Yourself Accountable

Making next year your best year yet also requires that you take a close look at your current habits and routines and assess what changes you might need to make. If more significant changes in your life and business sound intimidating or unachievable, don’t worry – impactful changes don’t have to be ones that are big in scale. Even small and subtle changes to your habits can make significant and positive differences next year.

For example, this year, I started waking up early before my daughter gets up, so I could work on growing my business. Before I begin going through emails or getting consumed by client work, I invest time in moving my business forward. Establishing this simple habit helped me implement new products and services I usually would be too busy to finish during the day.  

Try using this free download:

Hold Yourself Accountable

When it comes to the goals you set for yourself and your business, you are the person in charge of making them happen. You are the only one accountable for them, so it’s important to create ways of checking in with yourself and staying on track. 

Try setting a reminder every month to look at your progress and where you are on each goal’s action plan. Or, give yourself some incentive: reward yourself once you’ve reached a goal. Give yourself a day off, perhaps, or invest in a resource or tool you’ve had your eye on. However, you choose to keep yourself accountable, doing so will help you make progress toward accomplishing your goals.

With these tips and a commitment to creating your success, you can make 2021 your best year yet. If you’re ready to get started, be sure to grab your copy of The Goal Setting Planner. I designed it to help you set and organize your goals and create a plan of action to accomplish them.