How to Crush Your Goals All Year Long

What if you could just enjoy the New Year and New Beginnings without the focus on creating resolutions?

What if you could start the New Year locked and loaded, already crushing your goals by mid-January, allowing for the cultural breaks of our country? Enjoying your time off with your kids. 

Once I learned how to create a continuous year with intentional pauses, I never looked back. 

I’ve actually never been happier and more in control than I feel with the implementation of intentional pauses. 

I remember being in the same boat you are but I had a jarring turning point in my life that changed so much.  

It was 2020, George Floyd was brutally killed in front of the world and my whole aura changed. 

I couldn’t get out of it. I couldn’t make sense of what happened. I couldn’t stop thinking about my own mortality as a black woman raising black children, married to a black man in America. 

Needles to say, it shook me to my core that day in late May of 2020. 

I spent the rest of the summer trying to grapple with what I had seen. Attempting to understand why it was affecting me to my core. 

I was becoming someone I didn’t like. I was becoming cynical and hardened. 

I knew I couldn’t wait until January.

Something had to change immediately.

Micro-commitments are the key

So I decided to make micro-commitments to myself that would lead me back to the person I wanted to be. I couldn’t commit to big sweeping goals. I had to practice small habits to get back to myself. 

I needed to be on autopilot.

For 6 weeks straight I focused all of my energy on these micro-committments. They were simple things like walking for 30 minutes as a minimum, reading for 30 minutes, and journaling for 30 minutes. These three things were the only things I could commit to getting done. 

Nothing more.  

You can listen to a podcast I made during that time here. 

Micro-commitments are a great way to start. 

If you want to truly succeed with your goals, Intentional Pauses or RESETS will be the ultimate game-changers.

First, you have to understand the beauty of intentional pause over setting resolutions.

Intentional pauses allow you to iterate where necessary to continue practicing rather than giving up altogether. 

Many of us get swept up in the idea of a ‘fresh start effect’ when we should, instead, regularly and consistently evaluate our progress and direction in relation to our goals. 

What is an intentional pause?

Intentional pauses are designated RESET periods throughout the year for you to rest your mind and body while evaluating your current practices, routines, rhythms, and progress. 

With the Practice Your Perfect 6 method, it is encouraged to create intentional pauses every 6 weeks. 6 weeks is enough time to discover what’s working, and what’s not while giving you the ability to course correct if there have been any setbacks along the way. 

What happens in an intentional pause? 

A RESET or REST for your mind.

An intentional pause allows you to go through the 5 step RESET process to: Reflect, Evaluate, Set new intentions or goals, Examine your metrics, and Take action. 

RESETS can last 1 day or 1 week depending on what you need. 

These are generally planned in advance with a 5-day reset and 2-day preparation.

Creating Your Continuous Year

Each year consists of 52 weeks which breaks down into four 13-week periods. Most gurus focus on 12-week or 3-month periods, but 4 weeks are leftover and this is where we add in those longer RESET periods. 

The 5-day RESETs are generally done 4 times a year and the alternating 6-week period has a 1-day check-in RESET. 

As an example, my Continuous Year “New Year” or “fresh start effect” happens at the start of November. 

This is my ‘BIG’ RESET if you will. I take this time to think of the word or words that will guide my year, take stock of how I want to shape the upcoming year as far as priorities, and so on. I make any changes to my schedule, look at the holidays and generally set my self and business to go on autopilot so that I can enjoy the Holidays and remain fully present with my family. 

The next check-in happens on Dec 13 just before the holidays hit the crescendo of Christmas and New Year's. Followed by the next ‘Big’ Reset on Feb 1st.

This is what allows you to remain in control all year long. 

The intentional pauses are created when you set up your Continuous Year and placed in your calendar long before the hustle and bustle of the holidays. 

In the meantime, you’re aware of your goals and setting your life and business on autopilot until the next scheduled pause. 

10X Your Productivity 

After employing this method for the last 4 years, I’ve been able to create courses and grow my nonprofit all while remaining present with my family, and crushing l some major personal goals along the way. 

In other words, my productivity exploded! 

10x what I had been able to accomplish in previous years with the New Year's Resolution model.

The approach and pressure of the goals were no longer to SHOW the world, they were to design my future. 

The future I wanted, the future that matched my KUDOS (known ultimate destination of success). 

By the time I reached January, I was off to the races practicing the things I intended to change.

I had given myself a headstart on “the fresh start effect” long before the holidays in the lull of time between Halloween and Thanksgiving before things really ramped up. 

Find the spaces of transition to take advantage of the calm and take a moment to really reflect and evaluate your next direction.

As you continue remember that we are setting intentions to practice, not resolutions to complete.

Start Designing Your Future 

If you want to stop the cycle of failure, which we’ve all been there, create a continuous year for yourself. 

Creating consistent ‘fresh start effects’ for yourself to continuously evaluate your goals, which I call RESETS or intentional pauses in your life and business to ensure alignment over the elusive idea of balance.

If you’re ready to get started but need a roadmap as to how to run through your first RESET, watch The Reset Process video followed by the downloadable Practice Your Perfect 6 workbook. You’ll learn exactly how to create a vision, create a master list, create a daily docket, and calendar it. 

I’m not asking you to despise New Year’s Resolutions, instead, I’m asking you to simply shift from the one-year collective RESET to understanding the importance of continuous “fresh starts.” 

Spending time creating a continuous year allows you the opportunity to remain present with family and friends during the season. 

Nothing should overshadow that special time!

Now get out there and unleash your something AMAZING!