2017 is now in play. You again have the whole brand new year to reflect on your life and redesign it as per your wish. Let’s admit that you feel awesome when you achieve what you want. Well, we all do. The feeling of achievement and being successful makes us thrilled and pumped up.

Making resolutions is a great way to begin the new year. Resolutions show our intention and aspiration to grow in the areas that interest, affect or benefit us. However, without solid execution strategy, our intention loses charm with time. The end result? Lack of sustained effort resulting in failure.

How can we make 2017 the best year ever? How to thrive in 2017 with clarity, confidence and sustained efforts throughout the year?

There are three key elements that can be of your help, and I will tell you what are those here in this post.

But before that, let’s understand what kind of life is the best life? To me, the best life is the balanced life, where all important areas of life are well-balanced and well-maintained. When you experience progress in all important areas of your life and not just one or two, you feel fulfilled.

You sure do not want to spend the whole year busy making money at the cost of your health and relationship. Life is also about to enjoy and spend time with your loved ones and doing what you love.

The four main important areas of a human life are: Health, finance, relationship and spirituality.

You must know where you are standing in each of these areas, and where you want to go. And then you need to identify your goal and work towards achieving that goal.

A word of caution: Many cooks spoil the food, similarly, having too many goals can also ruin your process of achievement.

However, feel free to have at least 1 to 3 goals in all important areas of your life. Because we want to work for our all important areas to achieve balance in life. Remember, balanced life is the meaningful life.

3 key elements that help you maintain your clarity, confidence and focused effort.

1. Dream:

Do you afraid to dream big? Don’t be. Begin with the end in your mind by asking: What exact outcome I would want to see in my important area? How much money I want to make this year? How much time I want to spend with my parents, wife, kids or friends?

Think high and dream big. If you can aim for the star, you will at least hit the moon. Not failure, law aim is crime. Feel absolutely free to have big, hairy and audacious goals. Reminding yourself about your dream helps you to regain your lost interest for your goal and injects new energy.

You are limited only by your own thoughts. Learn how to overcome your self-limiting thoughts here.

After having a stellar dream, now is the time to make a decision, and that’s our second element.

2. Decision

Dreaming feels super, but decision settles your mind on one goal with clarity.

Making decisions sometime sounds daunting, confusing and difficult for many. Why? Because they want to have only the best possible outcome of their effort, and in life there is no guarantee of certainty. Here is the interesting article I read about the four truths of life.

Our willingness to take risks, and welcoming changes, challenges and uncertainties opens up the gate of many opportunities and possibilities. But for that, learn to declutter your mind and settle on one clear goal.

If you want to make a thoughtful and informed decision, follow this simple decision making process. Grab your pen and paper to do all thinking. Thinking in air is not so effective.

Ready? Let’s begin.

First of all, for any goal…

•  List your alternatives or available options with its cost and benefits both side by side. Writing them down will enable you to see the clear picture.
• Now evaluate your options by taking all pros and cons of each alternative into consideration. Keep your core values (honesty, truth, integrity, etc.) into the center while narrowing down your options.
• And now pick the one option that serves you the best.

That’s it. You’re done. Pick one and forget all.

Don’t be a victim of analysis paralysis or get sucked into any dilemma. ‘But should I choose this or that’… only wastes your time and weakens your decision power. Select one, and forget the rest of all.

Take the Ownership of Your Decision: Every choice brings certain outcomes with time, and it may not always the expected one. Accept this fact of life. Your decision will have outcomes too. It’s very important that after making a decision, you own it, you stand for it. Even if your decision doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to be, still accept the outcome. You can always learn from your experiences and make necessary changes to make better decisions next time. No need to curse yourself for making an incorrect choice. Making mistakes is not a mistake, not learning from a mistake is the only mistake.

 Always tell yourself: I own my decision because I made it with all the best available information and resources at the time of making my decision. Now I accept it’s outcomes and am willing to learn from my experience to make better decisions in future. – – This will always keep you grounded and open to learn from your experiences.

However, Two fears will still pull your legs:

i. Fear of failure:

“But what if I would fail?”—> So what? Sky is not going to fall down on you. Change your perspective towards failure. What is failure? Failure is nothing but a feedback, a compass, which shows us the right direction to go to. Failure shows what is in our best interest to do and what needs to be avoided next time. We should be grateful to each failure for with each failure we become wiser and mature.

See failure as a a guiding post and use it for your own advantage.
ii. Fear of criticism:

“What will others think or say about me?” – is the biggest disease many of us are suffering from. If you don’t have self-control, you will easily be carried away with criticism.

Here’s my two cents on this:

First, People actually have their own problems to deal with, and they care often less about you and your problem than you think they do. But, like it or not, there are some people in everybody’s life who have nothing better to do except constantly watching for others and making comments that only hurt others.

Second, no matter what you chose to do, you will always find some people who’ll have an opinion about you. Good or bad. But let’s not forget that it is still their own opinion, assumption, interpretations. Not Yours. They operate from their own level of thinking and standard of influences. Not all criticism is constructive and given with an intention to help, nor all of them are worth listening to.

Remember, you have the freedom either to pay attention to what they say, or to ignore their words completely and to stay true to your path. Choose your option wisely, and stick to it with all your dedication. And that’s our last element.

3. Dedication:

Dream doesn’t work unless you do.

We at Approach Your Actions, believe in actions, and that’s why along with the end result goals, we also have the action goals and our daily focus is not on the end result but on today’s action goals only.

For instance, one of my goals is to be in a great physical shape this year (my end result goal) and for that I have decided to work out three days a week (my action goal). My daily focus is on my action goals, not on the end result goals.

I want to improve my writing (my end result goal), and so I’ve decided to participate in write 500 words a day challenge (my action goal).

Once my end result goals and action goals are decided. I am not worried about the end result, but am focused on completing my daily actions. That’s it. Being in action zone makes me feel more excited and accountable. Taking care of your actions goal will take care of your end result goal.

Now all you have to do is to work your face off day in and day out completing your actions. Your actions will bring your desired result. Having intentions are great, but you only be judged by the results you deliver. Your ability to execute converts problems into solutions and goals into results.

So, dream, decision and dedication are the simple and effective three elements that will help you not only to thrive in 2017 but to live this year as the best year ever.

Want something more solid to jump start your new year?

Participate in 100 days challenge designed by my friend Gary Ryan Blair, and set the tone of the year for winning the game. Click here to find out more. See you inside.

Happy new year and Wishing you a brilliant success in 2017!

Bharat Jhala

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