The One Thing I Do Instead of New Year’s Resolutions

I have been going through the last few years without any New Year's resolution. It's not because they don't work. There were some that did work for me in the past, but I found something so much more powerful that I didn't have the need to go back to any such resolutions. This is the Leap Live and Laminate podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Esther Godor. Twelve years ago, I took a big leap. I left my corporate job, I moved into a new country and started a business from scratch in my fifth language. Today I run a boutique launch and systems agency helping ambitious entrepreneurs build smart and scalable digital businesses on Kajabi without having to do everything by themselves. This is your go to place with honest stories, actionable strategies and real talk around building a business and life you love. Your best life and success story are still ahead. Let's write them together. Hey there. Welcome to this brand new episode of Leap Live and Lemonade. Today is just me and this will be a friendly chat. I don't think it will be that long, but I want to share something super important with you. I. I was, I went to the gym on the 30th of December and then today on the 2nd of January, when I'm recording this and the difference I have seen in terms of how many people were actually there was crazy. Showed how strong New Year's resolutions are on the second day of the year. And it shows how they, how fragile they are. As on the 30th there was almost nobody at the gym. Whereas on the 2nd of January it was, it was fully, fully full. So welcome to this new year. Welcome to this new episode. I wish nothing but the very, very best for you this year. I wish that all your wildest dreams come true. And I wish the same for myself. And I'm already wearing my newest necklace. I got this from, from Javi, from Papa Noel. It's. He said it brings calm and patience. Is he trying to insinuate something? I'm wearing this because today I was a bit anxious about something and I was like, okay, I'll put this on. So it brings me calm and patience. So here we go. It's made with ashes of lavender. That's why it's got the color and it's beautiful. So I hope it will give me the calm I need for the rest of this day. The light won't be the very best because it's already totally dark outside. And this is what I want to talk about today while I was doing my hair and my makeup, I. I Got a call from my best friend Julia and we haven't talked for a couple of maybe weeks. We, we have been sending voice messages back and forth, but basically I lost the, the time slot of, of having a good light because of talking to her. But I, I really wanted to honor that moment as she finally, she has three kids, so she was finally in a place, in a time where, where she had time to, to talk. And it was, it was a really nice chat to start the year with. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to record because it's already dark. But then I remembered what I wanted to talk about and, and I will get back to this in the. When, when I, when I already shared with you what this is about. So, and sorry, I'm gonna be rambling a bit, so it's best if you put me on in the background as, while you are driving or, or batch cooking for the week or, or cleaning so you can listen to me in the background as if you were listening to a WhatsApp voice message from a friend. So what I want to share with you today is that I have been going through the last few years without any New Year's resolution. And it's not because they don't work. There were some that did work for me in the past, but I found something so much more powerful that I didn't have the need to go back to, to any such resolutions. And the gym is a great example. It's, it's so, so hard to keep up with going to the gym. At least, at least for me. It's so easy to say, oh, I lost the slot for the class. It was a 10am class I wanted to go for. And there was this call coming in or it's raining or I didn't find my lock for these little cupboards they have at the gym, the locker, or I couldn't find the pants I wanted to wear. So I'm not going today. It's so easy to say no. And if it's a simple New Year's resolution, like I'm going to go to the gym five times a week or I'm going to go every second day, then it's. There is just, it's just coming from a different place than what I will be sharing with you today. And what, what I want to say about this is I found this in 2022 when I did an event with Lisa Nichols. She's a, she's a motivational speaker, but she's more of a transformational speaker because whenever you Listen to her. It's not just you get motivated and you forget about this. Whatever she shares has been so transformational for me that I never went back to what I was thinking before or the person I was before listening to her on any topic. So I attended one of her workshops in 2022 and in that workshop, that was in April, so it had nothing to do with New Year's resolutions, but it had everything to do with finally getting in control of your life at a different level, wherever you are and whatever area you want to be focusing on, whether it's your health, whether it's your finances, whether it's your relationship, whether it's family, it's your kids, it's your travels or holidays or your non existing holidays, or whether it's your professional life, your job or your business, the business you are running. So I attended that workshop and she asked us to choose just one topic. There were seven areas that we were rating our satisfaction in or the level we were at in. And the approach was that you should choose just one single topic we are going to focus on and put all our energy into that topic. And for me, it was my health overall. Yeah, it wasn't just I want to go to the gym, it was, I then realized, and by then I, I had been running my business for eight years. I realized in that moment during that workshop that the body I was in wouldn't be able to keep up with the dreams that I had in my mind. And this was such an important realization and what we built around it was that from the moment on when you made that decision, and this is not about health, this can be any area of your life. Was that from now on? From this moment on. So while I'm talking to you, this is not for next week when you go back to work, maybe after some holidays. This is not for the second quarter of 2026, this is right now. And if you're listening to me openly and from the heart, you will fully get this. It's about connecting with that future person you are becoming the person you want to be and making decisions today, right now, with the mind from the place of that future you. So basically, since 2022, whenever I'm in my grounded state, it doesn't always like it's, it's not 100%, it doesn't happen like all the time. All the time, but most of the time and whenever I'm. I'm serious about what I want to achieve in any area. And this could be the relationship with hobby, this could be Just making a great breakfast. This could be reading a book or not reading a book. I ask myself, what would the person I'm becoming do in this situation? And now I can connect back to what I just shared right at the start about it having gotten dark. By the time I finished with that call with Julia, it was totally dark. And I was like, oh, okay, so the light. There is no natural light anymore, so this video won't work. And then I asked myself, what would my future version, my future me, the person I'm becoming, What would they do? Would they just let this opportunity slip because of the freaking natural light? Or would they just record this video? Because what I want to say is way more important than what it looks like. And I even have a ring light, which can make it pretty awesome. Yeah. And I have a super microphone, which will make it sound great, which is, again, way more important than how it looks. So. And then I came here to the computer, and. And I was. I was starting the recording, but then a call came in from my sister and from my nephew Leonard. And sometimes it's difficult for us to catch them because they have a routine. Then we have a routine, and it's always such a blessing to be able to talk to them. So I was like, okay, I will take that call. So I took the call. Javi came in. He did his silly stuff with Leonard. When he sees me, he just smiles. But when he sees Javi, he goes really crazy, and he really enjoys his company. Um, and. And then I was. I was again like, okay, we wanted to go to the city center to do some shopping and to. To take back some Christmas gifts and exchange. Have them exchanged. Okay. So I'm like, the. The. Again, the time slot now is. Is definitely lost, but I'm still gonna take this call. And then when we finished with the call, it again came in. I'm like, oh, this is the topic I want to talk about. How is it going to happen if I don't even ever record this episode? So then I asked Javi, would you mind going by yourself? Because it's his stuff that we wanted to exchange. And then I catch up with you. I will see you in an hour. And it was totally fine with him, and he just left. And now I'm recording this. So I think you get this already. So if you are with me in this, try to pull up some examples, some areas where you are about to make a decision, whether it's finishing off this episode and listening to it until the end and working out your own future self. And how you're going to make those decisions, or whether it's about today's dinner plans or whether it's about how you show up tomorrow with your clients or with your family, if that's on your mind. So let's see where you want to be in that area in a year's time or even in three years time. Okay. I have it pretty damn clear where I want to be. I have it as clear. And this will be another side note, but it's amazing, so I will share. Last year in September, I joined Amaya Shantay in her program. It's called Diamond Queen. And what we are doing there is for one year, we are living our life as if we already had everything we imagine in our wildest dreams. And on the, I think it was the 27th of December, we had our Christmas ball, our party, where we actually did our appreciation speech for 2026. So we did as if we were in, in the end of 2026. And we said thank you for everything that happened in that year. And it was so, so powerful. It could just be, you know, silly acting as, oh, yeah, I want this kind of a house. I want that kind of a lover. Wasn't me. I'm happy with my husband. Yeah. But there were all kinds of areas that everybody was talking about for their. For the most amazing year. And what I talked about, I talked about many things. But when I actually did that speech, I truly felt it was real. And call me crazy, but it's not new for me. I have been doing this for a while. Javi was surprised that the other day I told him, we, we have as our dream going to Japan for like a month in 2026. So an amazing family trip, basically. And I told him, oh, we need to change the pictures above our bed in our bedroom. He was like, why? I'm like, don't you remember that in. I think it was in 2022 that we first started doing that. We. We put pictures of Tuscany on a wall in our house. Three pictures. So I got three picture frames and we had Tuscany as our dream trip. So we put three pictures of Tuscany in our. In our bedroom, over our bed, as if those were our holiday photos. Those are just normal Tuscany photos, like small, tiny streets, beautiful restaurant, flowers and all that. But the year after, or even the same year, I don't know exactly when, but we did go to Tuscany. And actually that's where he proposed. Yeah. And then later we said, oh, we want to spend some time in Lisbon. We want to go to Portugal. So I changed those pictures. I changed them to photos of Lisbon. And since the time we have Lisbon there, we had one, two, three trips to Portugal. And again, this might be crazy, but we are using these little tricks to settle these things in our minds. He even forgot, but I don't mind. I remember this kind of stuff. So I told him, hey, we gotta change the pictures to Japan, because this year we want to go to Japan, and that has been working for us. So. And then he was like, oh, shouldn't we just put a picture of a million dollars there? Because my goal with my business was like, yeah, whatever. But it has been working with the trip. So it's. It's not. The importance here is not on what you do or what you put on your desk. The essence here is that you create that reality in your mind that you are the person that has it. And Amoya can tell you so much more about this. She's actually running her Gateway 21 challenge this January. I'm not sure what day it starts, but I will put in the link for you. If you want to do a fun challenge with her, with your Delulu year, with a year of fully living your most outrageous, your most incredible dream life from the first moment when you get started, then you should definitely do that. So I will include that below. But what I wanted to get to with this is I did my thank you speech for 2026 a few days ago, and then on New Year's Eve, you know, we do the grapes in Spain. We eat 12 grapes. And I think you also do it in Argentina and in other. In Latin countries, and people even in the US do that. My sister does it in Austria, so so many people do it. And it's eating 12 grapes over the last 12 seconds of the old year or the first 12 seconds of the new year, I don't even know. We just put on the TV and we just count with the presenters and we have our grapes prepared. And some people even do it under the table. And this ritual is for you to call in that desired something that you are desiring. Like whether it's luck that you want to call in, whether it's love that you want to call in, whether it's money that you want to call in. You would be making the desire and you would be thinking of that thing that you are. You want to call in in the new year. But when I did the grapes this year, when I was eating the 12 grapes, something different happened. And I can't even grasp it, but what happened was I Saw everything in those 12 seconds. Everything I said in my 2026 speech. In my 2026, that thank you speech. In those 12 seconds, I could see it as a, as a movie. Like, you know, sometimes people say whenever you are in a life threatening situation, you would see the movie of your life in just a few seconds. And in this case, I saw the, my movie of 2026 in those 12 seconds as a, like all the events that I'm dreaming of just lined up really quickly and all of them coming true. And it was like, wow, it blew my mind. But the most amazing about it was that it didn't feel like these are my desires. It felt like these are my memories. It felt like this is already mine, this is already happening. And I'm just going with this. Even if I, even if I'm batshit crazy. It has worked for me so many times in the past that I don't care what basis it has. It, it does have, it does have some scientific basis. It's like, you know, when you, when, for example, we got our new car, which is. What is it? Is it, is it a Renault? It's, it's a white car. It's a. I think it's a. No, it's a Peugeot. It's a Peugeot 2028. Is there such a car then? That's the car we have. And once we got the car, we would see that car, we would see so many of that car all over the streets. And before that I didn't see any of those cars. So it's basically what you have on your mind is what you, you will see, is what you attract. But also those cars were probably always there, but it, it was not what I was paying attention to, so I didn't see them. But is the same with a client, an opportunity, a possibility maybe for your kid to do a trip abroad that they were desiring but you didn't have the money for. And if you have that on your mind all the time, you will see the opportunity for it. You will see the possibility for it. So basically what has been working for me is when I make a decision from the, with the mind of my future self, being the person that I'm becoming, even if I don't get the end goal, I don't get the desired outcome. There are so many opportunities lining up for me on the way to that dream life that when I first thought of, okay, what is it that I want to have in 2026 that I didn't have in 2025, it was even Difficult for me to come up with a list first because I was like, I freaking have everything I ever wanted. But of course, you do find a few things. And it's not just the. The LED mask that I really want to get. I'm just desiring that. But that's. I think that's the only physical thing that I'm desiring right now. So, yeah, let me just have a sip of water. I put on the heating in the room, and it's getting really, really hot. I'm just going to turn it down a little bit. I don't want to be suffocating here. All right, so if you are still with me, I want to bring you a few examples where I use this approach and where it really. It really helped me move forward and do it and stick to it without forcing myself. Because, like I said, it's so difficult to keep up with the gym routine. Or it's so difficult to, like, record all the podcast episodes that you promised yourself you would record. Whenever I have guests, it's way easier because we have it scheduled and we just show up and we do it. Yeah, even when we cancel, we would find the time because of respect to each other. But when it's only me that has to show up, then it's. It's so easy to cancel. Or it's so easy not to go with my husband for a walk when he asks me to, because I still have three emails to send. But since I'm. Since I'm following this approach on more and more and more and more areas of my life, if the decision to do something comes from my future self, from the person I'm becoming, it all makes sense. There is no excuse. There is nothing that can come in my way. And it becomes so much more powerful than a simple resolution that at the first failure, the first time you don't do it, you give up on the whole damn thing. For example, if you decide to go to the gym five times a week, and this week you only went once, or you didn't go even once, then you are like, okay, I failed on the plan. But if I'm making that decision of going to the gym five times a week or every second day, or the times my body allows me to go, whatever it is, it's not the wording that counts. If you are making that decision because your future self does take care of their body that way, or their soul. I find that many times I need the gym more for my mental health than for my physical health, because that's my time When I, when I switch off many times that's the only time when I don't have my, my mobile in my hand. So yeah, I do it both for, for mental and physical balance and health. So when I'm tired or when I don't find my pants or when I don't find my keys to the locker or when I lose the, the time slot for, for the body balance class and now there is only a espadasana which is healthy back class then previously I wouldn't go because I, I lost it because I can't find it now even if I lost all the time slots for the gym, I would still go. I would just do whatever on whatever machine I have my ChatGPT wellness companion. It gives me amazing. What is this? Like quick gym plans for functional weight activities, whatever. So I would still go. And I would still go because the person I'm becoming would go. So even if today I wouldn't go. Even if today I wouldn't record this episode because I don't have the natural light, my future self would just record this episode because they wouldn't care about what it looks like. They care about wanting to transmit this message that they wanted to bring you today. Yeah, and, and it's the same with, with everything. Like there is such a. There is an example where I truly, truly didn't listen this year and I want to share this example with you. In the end of February and I said this year, but I'm talking about 2025. In the end of February, I got a message from a potential new client and it was a beautiful project. I fell in love with the project straight away. It had to do with the type of product, with the type of business that I dreamed of being able to be a part of. But when we had the first call and even before having the first call, they wanted everything for yesterday. And in my world, that's a huge red flag with a client. A client that wants to do everything in a rush is a client that, that hasn't made a meditative decision on where they are going and will if you, if you are not cautious, if you're not careful, they will put that rush onto you. And if you are not great with your boundaries with that client, it can mess up not just your project, but it can mess up your whole life. And that's what happened. I still remember when I went to bed on the last night, it took me like a week to decide whether I will say yes on the project. Maybe not a week because they wanted an answer really fast. I think it was like three days. But I remember the last night I went to bed and there was this huge red flag, like blinking over my head like, no, you don't take this type of a client. You don't take them because you feel like you won't be able to stick to your boundaries and it's really dangerous. But then on the other side, I had this other little voice that was telling me, this is the world that you wanted to step into. You've been wanting to step into for the last five years. This is the type of client you have been craving, you have been dreaming of. And what if. What if it's just fear that's telling you not to take them because they are not the dream type of client or they have this freaking huge rat. But I explained it to myself. It was just the fear of the unknown and I had to step into it. And if I took this one, then I will have hundreds of such clients in the future. And this is my entry ticket to that world that I had been dreaming of. And today I know that the red flag should have won. But I went with the little. The little sound in my head that said, you are just afraid good things only happen out of your comfort zone and all that kind of bullshit. Which was bullshit in that moment. Yeah. Because I do believe we have to leave our comfort zone for amazing things to happen. But in that moment, it was kind of bullshit because I was just trying to convince myself. And I did convince myself. I did take the contract. It was the biggest contract, financially that we ever took. It brough amazing amount of work for my team. It helped me build the amazing team I have now. It really helped us with Farzana, who is the project manager in my company. It helped us get to a new level. So it did have tons of benefits. But it made me crumble. It made me fall into pieces by August. So we took it in the end of February and I was able to manage. I would say no, I wasn't setting any boundaries. I thought I did, but not the way I would set with other clients from the get go because I thought I was charging the amount that makes up for all the shit it might bring. So I thought I was charging enough to cover my. I don't know, can you ever charge enough to make up for you going crazy, you losing your family time completely? Because this is what happened. You losing your connection to yourself, and you giving up on most of the other things you wanted to do this year just to make sure you deliver on this project, I don't think anyone can pay you enough. And although it seemed like an amazing, an amazing level of financial, an amazing level of income for many months this year, it was way below what we actually did for them. I think we, for the work we did for them, we should have charged four times as much, literally. And by August, I was in my. I was like, we. We delivered amazingly on this project. For the first six months we worked our ass off and there were fantastic results, but it cost me my. Even my health. I was up until 4am several nights in a row. It was a US company and I wanted to make sure I was available for our live launch, which was the worst decision ever. But, yeah, this is what it taught me. When there's a huge red flag and there is that little sound that tells you maybe this is the thing you need, if it goes against your values, if it goes against the way you want to treat yourself, then you have to be very alert of that red flag. So I'm not saying make up crazy things as your future self and crazy ideas. And you know what, what was so clear that night, and this is where I wanted to go, but I kind of lost my track. Sorry about that. That last night before I made the decision, I asked myself, would my future self take this client? And the answer was not with these conditions. And the answer was that if they did, they would set the right boundaries. And had I listened to myself, at least on the boundaries, I think it could have even worked out. So it could have been the entry ticket to an amazing world where more of this type of clients are coming our way. But I only halfway did what my future self, what the person I'm becoming would do. In that case, I accepted it. But I didn't set the boundaries. So this is a word of caution. So don't just invent the craziest crazy ideas about your future self, but connect with that, with that person you are becoming. And if you feel that you need, you need some more information on how to connect with that future self, how to actually know what the person you want to become would do. If you don't have it clearly in your mind, then send me a dm. I have an exercise specifically built for this. It's also part of any program that I teach and it's also part of my membership content. It's not out right now, but it will be very soon. But I'm happy to give you that exercise. So many people have been through it and they have been loving it and using it for connecting with their future self. So if you need it, do send me a DM or leave me a comment below. Wherever you are watching this or listening to this, you can also email me or message me on socials. I will be happy to get you that future self exercise because that will help you be clear on whether you are making the decisions from the right place. That's. That's super important. So yeah, this is what I wanted to share with you today. Thank you so much for listening throughout this whole little conversation. I trust it made sense with all the rambling. This is also a style I wanted to try where I'm not overly obsessed with saying things the right way, but rather talking to you as a friend and as if you were my friend. You are my friend. Anyway, thank you for giving me your time and I trust that what you heard right now is giving you something super valuable in return. And if you love this then please give me a like please give me a comment below. Please share what you're going to use this future self decision making process for. Maybe something super easy like what you're going to make for dinner tonight. What would your future self make for dinner tonight? Or would your future self dress up and go out instead of just staying at home? Share with me in the comments and give me a follow or a subscribe so you are notified whenever I have a new episode coming out. Thank you so much. Have a great one.