2022: Make it a Year Without Limits

January 3, 2022 | ChangingCourse.com

Happy New Year! In the Chinese zodiac, 2022 is the year of the Tiger–a symbol of strength, exorcising evils, and braveness. Doesn’t that sound like a list of three key things you will need when you set out on a journey to change course?

In last week’s newsletter, we asked you to write down your goals for 2022, break them down into smaller manageable tasks, and give them deadlines. Now look at the biggest goal on your list, the one you can likely only accomplish by achieving the other goals.

In the same place where you wrote down your goals, answer the question: How do you think your life will be different when you achieve this big goal?

Does that change scare you?

For many of us, we secretly have in our heads some reason why we believe we will not achieve our greatest goals. They are often based on our own fear of change, boundaries that someone else set for us, or boxes filled with limitations into which others tried to fit our big dreams.

Let 2022 be your year without limits. Let it be the year that you cast off the cloak that has hidden your greatness and break out of the box that is much too small for your dreams.

To Your Big Dreams,

Money Making Idea: Resolution Accountability Partner or Coach

Each year, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions, just to give up on them halfway through January. Resolutions are generally about important and positive changes including:

  • Get Healthy: Lose Weight, Exercise More, Eat Healthily, Stop Smoking
  • Get Organized: Home, Closets, Important Papers, Finances, Make a Will
  • Financial Health: Spend Less, Save More, Save for Emergencies or Retirement
  • Live Life to the Fullest: Find Love, Spend More Time with Family, Travel
  • Learn Something New: Read More, Learn a New Language, Develop New Skills

If these popular resolutions, that many people struggle with, are things that you have conquered, and you know strategies that can help others, you would make a great Resolution Accountability Partner or Coach.

Most often, when people are looking for accountability partners, they select people with the same struggles, who understand how they feel. The problem is that those accountability partners are struggling also and are generally not equipped to help those who are also fighting the good fight.

Even though the New Year has already begun, it’s not too late to start on this money-making idea. In fact, mid- to late-January when people begin to lose their motivation may be a great time to get started. Also encouraging people to begin making big changes at other times of the year may reduce the pressure of a New Year’s resolution.

Putting the Idea Into Action

One of the reasons that so many people fail to accomplish their New Year’s resolutions is because they don’t have a plan. They set a goal, and they may even begin to act on their goals, but without a plan and someone to hold them accountable, when they fall off track, they may simply give up.

Roles for a Resolution Keeper Accountability Partner or Coach

  • Help clients create a realistic plan of action to meet their goal(s).
  • Motivate clients to stick to the plan.
  • Share strategies that have worked for you and others to achieve the goal(s).
  • Explore other expert advice on how to help clients achieve their goals such as the Tanner Health Systems list of 12 Habits of Highly Effective Resolution Keepers. These habits can be incorporated into any system for goal achievement and accountability.
  • Provide an accountability mechanism for regular check-ins for clients to report progress or setbacks.
  • Create a tool for clients to track their progress or use a digital tracker. See examples under Goal & Habit Trackers below.
  • Provide encouragement and support for clients to continue with the plan after setbacks.
  • Modify or update the plan as needed.
  • Celebrate milestones along the way to the client achieving their goals.

Finding Clients

If you use social media, start by creating a post such as:

  • I’m looking for 10 people who’ve made a New Year’s resolution to _________________. If you’ve tried and failed to achieve this goal over and over again, I’d like to help you to conquer this challenge for good. Send me a DM for more information. Please share this post.
  • Are you tired of making the same New Year’s resolution to _________________ year after year? Are you ready to conquer this challenge once and for all? I can help. DM me for more information. Please share this post.

Fill in the blanks with your specific area of expertise, e.g., lose weight, pay off debt, declutter your home. Be specific so that your ideal client will recognize themselves in your words.

You can also send a message, like the ones above, to friends and family by email and ask them to share your message also.

To find clients in your community, create postcards or flyers and leave them in places related to the goal. For spending less and saving more, consider posting them in check cashing or payday loan places; for weight loss, put them on cars in gym parking lots during January.

Digital Goal & Habit Trackers (General)

Web-Based

App-Based (Phone or Tablet)

App- or Web-Based

Tracking By Goal

Get Healthy

Financial Health

Is this what’s holding you back?

LIMITING THOUGHT

I Worry About What Others Think of Me

You worry and even obsess over what others think about you. Worrying about what others think of you can be incredibly consuming. It can sap your time, energy, and joy. It keeps you from being productive and often causes you to second guess your own instincts in favor of what you think others want you to do.

Your limiting belief is that if you do (or don’t do) certain actions, others will think less of you. If this limiting belief is not addressed, it can become an obsession. It can keep you from pursuing your dreams and cause you to constantly be afraid of what others are thinking.

Do not let what other people think become the measuring stick by which you measure your actions and your dreams.

NEW THOUGHT

I am secure in myself and what I think is what counts.

Does it matter if others think more or less of you? No, it doesn’t.

You can’t control what others think and you can’t let what they think control you or how you feel about yourself.

The key to rewriting this limiting belief is to realize that what others think of you simply doesn’t matter. What truly matters is what you think of yourself.

Your new belief is that the opinions of others don’t affect you one way or the other. You are free from caring what others think of you. You are secure in yourself, knowing that you are valuable and worthy.

Your mantra this week is: I am secure in myself and what I think of me is what counts!

What We’re Reading

Not only is financial health a common New Year’s resolution, but it is also one of the big concerns people have when they are trying to change course from employee to entrepreneur. Tiffany Aliche’s New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and US Today best seller, Get Good with Money: Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole may be just the book you need. Also consider joining her Facebook group.