Ask Jack #2: How to Start the New Year Right | Jack Canfield

Hi, I'm Jack Canfield. I'm sitting here with Patty Aubrey. I want to welcome you to this wonderful little experience we're about to have with you. We're going to be answering some questions that you have. You probably know me as the co author of the Success Principles and Chicken Soup and all that good stuff. Patty has been working with me for the last 30 plus years. She's been the president of the Campfield training group, which she still is president of Chicken Soup for the Soul runs mastermind groups, has been the business brain behind me for many, many years and now is doing lots of mastermind groups and doing a lot of coaching with people going to be coming to you quite often at least once a month answering questions that you send in. And we have some questions today about how to keep things going in the new year. We've already started that year and got goals and resolutions and all that, but how do we keep ourselves going? It becomes to be February and March and April and maybe things are starting to taper off a little bit.

How do we stay moving forward?

Exactly.

Not go backwards.

Exactly.

Or just drop out of the game altogether.

Exactly.

Okay, so the first question for this Ask Jack and Patty show or whatever we're going to call this.

Yes.

Is from Merto. I always start the new. Oh, this is perfect. I always start the new year off with renewed enthusiasm, goals and a great vision for the future. But how do we keep that going after a month or two? How do we overcome fatigue, procrastination and falling back into old bad habits?

I think the main thing I would say if you really want to keep it going would be to get an accountability partner and get a mastermind group so you don't feel like you're in it alone. You could also have a coach or a mentor, but someone who can be a partner and someone who can hold you accountable, someone that can encourage you, someone that you can encourage so you keep yourself going. You know, it's kind of like I have a lot of friends who do these. Like they swim back and forth between Santa Barbara and out there, the islands. And one guy will swim for an hour and the other guy just jumps in and swims for an hour. This idea of relay, it's the idea of a team. And so I think it's very hard. Someone once said, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I think it's an African proverb and I think it's really true. So so many of us are isolated. We're Solo entrepreneurs. We're doing it all by ourselves. And, you know, success is a team sport. So that's the first thing I would say is, you know, don't attempt to do it alone. Do make sure you've got some people supporting you. Because, you know, we've had that because we're business partners. So there are times when you feel discouraged and I pump you up. There's times when I feel discouraged and you pump me up and other staff like that. And so we can spell each other, if you will.

Yeah, I think that's what. I think that's the secret sauce to really us being so successful. Because if we. If you were doing chicken soup alone, or if I was, it would be worse if I was actually, it would have gotten nowhere for sure. But there were so many people that were saying, oh, well, why are you doing that? Oh, come and do this. Pulling and having opinions and judgments, and you're doing something new. Especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're a solo entrepreneur. And so to have someone that says, no, you can do this and I'll stick with you and you're good enough and I believe in you. I mean, all those things that get in the way when we're alone. If you leave me alone long enough with myself, I can talk myself out of anything. And so that's just a natural human, I think, behavior.

I'll speak to procrastination, because that was in the question. Procrastination is usually based on fear. Fear of failure, fear of looking stupid, fear of being conned by somebody, whatever it might be. So we keep putting it off, putting it off, putting it off. Because at some deep level, we're not sure we're going to be successful. If I told you, I'll wave a magic wand and all you have to do is V3 things to be a millionaire, everyone would run out and do them, you know, because it's guaranteed. And the reality is that most of us are scaring ourselves by imagining it's not going to work. So one thing to do is to. And we talk about this a lot, but so few people actually do it, which is to visualize the goal that you have is already succeeded. You've already accomplished it. And what that does is it fools the brain into thinking, oh, no problem, I've done this before, I can do this again. So it's building up your confidence through visualization, through talking about it, through acting as if. Act as if you've already done it. How would you walk and talk and dress and be if you were already a millionaire, if you'd already filled your practice, if you'd already achieved your sports goals, whatever it might be that you're working on, if you just act as if. Surround yourself with positive people. Surround yourself with people who are also committed to success, holding each other accountable. Read something uplifting and motivational every day. You know, there's millions of books out there. There's Chicken Soup for the Soul stories. There's all kinds of YouTube channels you can go to and be insp. I mean, it's amazing how many little movies people make out there about people who've overcome obstacles and do things like that. Those things will keep you motivated. Music. I have a playlist in the morning that includes songs like I'm so Excited and, you know, Michael Jackson songs, Beat it and Things I Get. Let's Go Start the Day. So any of those things will keep your energy up and keep you moving forward.

So I have a question about procrastination, because I hear this a lot, so I feel like one of the things when I'm procrastinating, I might not know what's next, or I might feel like it's gonna take too long, or I left the project and I have to go back to it. You were talking about something in one of your videos where you talked about the Five Secret or the.

The Five Minute Secret.

The Five Minute Secret. Can you talk about that for a second?

Sure. If you've got some project you've been procrastinating on, either because you're afraid it's gonna be too overwhelming, or it's gonna take too long, or you don't know what to do, or it's just gonna be uncomfortable, you know, making calls that are, you know, scary, whatever. What you do is just commit to do it for five minutes. Take your cell phone out, you know, set the timer for five minutes, and just do it for five minutes. And what happens is, this has been my experience. I actually do. This is that after you do the first five minutes, you don't even realize you've gone. 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. You just started and got into it. We've all had that experience where, well, the kitchen's a mess. I'm just going to wash the glasses and then I'll do the rest in the morning. And next, you know, it's 40 minutes later and you've washed the glasses, all the dishes, put everything away, cleaned the counter, and might even be washing the floor. Because once you get into it, there's momentum. And so everybody can Think I can survive five minutes? And you'd be surprised what that turns into.

When I read that or when I saw it. I don't know where I was, but I thought, I'm gonna do that. And I actually used that. I was editing stories for permission granted, and I thought, okay, I'm just gonna start. And I got into it and I forgot how much I love to edit stories four hours later. And it was, it was kind of nice because I actually got something completely done.

Yeah.

So thank you for that information for me and for everybody that's watching us. Okay, so let's go to number two. This is from Linda, and she says, I have too many goals to do and it's a bit overwhelming. How can I prioritize where my focus should be? In other words, which one to focus on first?

I think what most people tend to do is a thing is easiest that you can get done the quickest just to get satisfaction out of it. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think, as Stephen Covey talks about, we tend to do the easy and unimportant and we put off the more difficult but more long term important, meaning that this is going to really take my career to the next level, get my book finished, whatever it might be. So I would really encourage you as you're watching this, to think about the following. It's something we do in our company. We look at how many hours is it going to take to, to accomplish this? How many, how many person hours, how many dollars will I have to expend to get this thing done? What is the potential benefit in terms of impact in the world? Impact for me, how much money we can make, et cetera. And so you look at where can I put in perhaps the least amount of effort and time and get the greatest payoff? That's one thing you can do. The second thing to realize is that overwhelm always means I have too many things to do and no criteria to decide what to do first.

Right.

So you can look at your values. What's most important? Is it family? Is it health? Is it money? Is it making a difference in the world? So if your values are clear, then that will give you insight into what to do first as well. And sometimes you might just want to ask yourself, right now, I need to do something that's going to be fun because I've been really killing myself for a while. So what's something that's easy and fun, or what's something I really want to do? So again, it depends on your criteria. What are the criteria for you? For me, I'm always. I have a little phrase at the bottom of my computer that says, what's the most important thing I could do this minute that would have the greatest amount of payoff? So if you ask yourself that question, usually the answer comes pretty clear.

I agree with that. And I think one of the things that I like to do is look at all the different projects I have or goals that I have, and then what one has the largest payoff. And lots of times it could be the easiest thing. It just seems scary and big. And I do it first thing in the morning. So if I have to market something or I'm gonna launch a new program, or I have to do, like you said, sales calls, I do those right when I get up, so I can't talk myself out of it. And then what it also does is it frees up once I have that, that sale or that program full. This might be for the year, let's say so for my year goals, so then I can breathe for the rest of the year. So I always think about what's one thing I can do to cut me some slack if it's coming from that value of having to have the financial need and then going from there.

Well, we have a friend called Brian Tracy, who you know very well, who wrote a book called Eat that Frog. And the point of the book was, if you knew you had to eat a frog, let's say either a dead frog you hated the taste of, or worse, a live frog, you had to eat it, and you had to eat it by midnight. Most people would keep putting it off. God, I don't want to eat that frog. And all day long you're thinking about eating the frog. So you're never really focused on what you want to do because you're thinking about the frog, right? And what Brian says, get up, eat the frog, first thing, get it done. So whatever that difficult, hard, yucky, scary thing you need to do, do it first thing. And then it's like the rest of the day is easy because you did the worst thing, the hardest thing, and you get the momentum and the self esteem and the. Just the bolstering of self confidence when you do that. And the rest of the day gets a lot easier. Yeah.

And it's gone now. You have all this space and you don't feel like you're carrying the weight of that big idea.

Right.

Could I marinate the frog in Tabasco for you?

If you don't eat without Tabasco, you're Never gonna eat it.

I know that whole analogy. Just like the whole frog thing, really, I can't. Okay, number three from Erin. How can. How can my spouse and I create greater success and fulfillment as individuals? Plan as a team?

That's a hard question to answer without all the details behind it, but I would say that create a vision board together. Yeah. Well, I think you're going to have goals for yourself and goals for your partnership. And so just. Just know that those are two different sets of goals. Just like I have goals for my business and goals for my family life and my personal life. So you might have different goals because you're doing different businesses or you have different goals within the business, whatever it is. And then set a time aside, though, where you can say, what are our goals together? How many hours do we want to spend together? A week being intimate? How many vacation days do we want to have? Where do we want to go? Whatever it might be, do we want to have children? And if so, how many and how much time are we going to spend with them? And how does that affect the business? And on and on. So I sit down with my wife every December, and we look at our family goals and the goals for our relationship, and then I sit down with my staff, and we come up with our business goals. Two totally different things.

Well, I think the other thing, too, is if you want greater success in both areas for your spouse as well as yourself, then if you share those things in the beginning of the year and look at how can we support each other to let your professional goals work and to let mine. What other support do we need? Do we need child care? Do we need to do some sort of. I'll watch your kids one night. You watch our kids one night. So we can do a date night. Like, just really have the conversation up front. Like, here's what I want my year to look like. What do you want yours to look like? And then how do we bring them together? Because otherwise, I'm booking a trip and my husband might be somewhere else, and no one's home with the kids. Just kidding. That would never happen.

Creates a great movie called Home Alone.

But I mean, seriously, you really. That kind of communication is so important. And I think a lot of times we individually go off and we build our prayers, and we don't really even have the conversation. So I think that's really important. So build a family vision board. And we have those. So you could check those out. This is the end of this. Ask Jack and Patty questions for today. But we want to thank you. We want to encourage you to send in other questions. So dig deeper and always ask yourself, if I have a question, why do I have the question? Why do I have that question and what will it bring me? And so from there, would you like to add anything to that?

No, I would just add, you know, there's a comment place below to put comments. That's where you can write a question and just put it right in there. And we have people monitoring all that and we'll pick the questions that we think are the most interested of most people and you can get your question answered next time we do this. So thank you for joining us today. If you got value out of this, I hope you did, please let some other people know that might get value as well. People you care about. Make sure you like it as well. And if you're watching this on YouTube, which you are right now, I would encourage you subscribe to this channel if you haven't done that yet. So you'll get information about all our other videos that come up that can help you take your life to where you want to go. And finally, if you would like more information on the kind of things we're talking about here, go to my website@jackcampfield.com and there's all kind of resources there that can help you deeper with all of these things. So until next time, have a great life and thank you for joining us today.