8 Jan 2021 · 6 min
Three steps to make 2021 your best year: build mind-body habits like meditation and exercise, break big goals into micro-goals and celebrate wins, and create systems with accountability partners or coaching. Andrew Huberman's neuroscience and James Clear's Atomic Habits principle show that outcomes come from systems, not willpower alone.
This is Five Minute Friday. Plato said, the beginning is the most important part of the work. It's the beginning of the year, and now is your chance to start the year off the right way. I always say this, people remember the way you start and how you finish, but how you start is really what determines the the momentum you build throughout the year. It's a chance to start over and a lot of us need the opportunity to start fresh with new goals and new habits so we can create our best year yet. We might have got sidetracked last year, but some people didn't. They were able to adjust and pivot quickly because they were set up for the challenges and adversity that was coming their way. And if you wanna make 2021 the best year of your life, you need to set yourself up for success. So I wanna share with you three steps you can take to make the absolute most out of this coming year. Number one, you must prepare yourself for high performance. If you are not prepared for high performance, why would you achieve high performing results? And if you want a high performing year, then you need high performing habits. This is your meditation, your exercise, your healthy eating and your thoughts. These aren't just habits you can pick and choose to add to your life. Taking care of your mind and your body is essential. If you want to be a high achiever in 2021, you must believe in yourself. and if you don't do that because you look in the mirror and you're unhappy with the way you look, if you're unhappy with the thoughts you think, then these big goals are not gonna happen if you don't believe in yourself. It's also letting go of the habits that don't work for you. When you add a new habit, you also have to think about what you wanna let go of that is not serving you. So today, if you're serious about achieving your goals in this coming year, I want you to commit to keeping your mind and body and shape. Do it any way you choose, but make sure you do it. It's important. Number two, choose the most important goals. Coming into the new year, some people set all these goals, like a hundred different big goals that they have and resolutions for themselves. Being ambitious is great, but you can't achieve your goals if you have too much on your plate at once and not enough time to take action on it all. So pick just a couple important goals for the year so you can stay focused and direct the right amount of energy to each one. Then once you have long-term goals, break them into short-term micro goals. Long-term goals are powerful, but short-term goals will help you move forward and stay motivated. And make sure to celebrate the little wins and achieving small goals to build momentum. Because when you have big goals that take forever to accomplish and you don't focus on the effort you take on a daily basis, then you'll get unmotivated and it'll seem too far away. In neuroscience, talk about this when we had Andrew Huberman on, which is about the power of moving forward and developing these habits through celebrating the effort, not the end result. And number three, create systems to achieve your goals. It's hard to accomplish something with no system and no structure. James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits says, you, did not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. and I couldn't agree more. Your systems decide whether you're performing at the top of your game always or only sometimes. And at the start of the year, you may be full of excitement and motivation to achieve your goals, but when things get tough like they did in 2020, that motivation may start to run out. So you must create high performing systems in your life if you wanna achieve those goals. This can be a coach who guides you and supports you. It can be an accountability partner who makes sure you do what you say you're gonna do and keeps you on track. or it can be a community of driven people like yourself where everyone lifts each other up. And I just launched my Greatness Coaching Program that can be your high performance system for 2021 and beyond. And it's at lewishouse.com/mycoach. And it includes all the proven things needed to achieve your big goals, including coaching, accountability and community and my new Greatness Playbook where you'll reflect, plan and create short term and long term visions for your life. But whether you join Greatness Coaching or not, creating high performance systems will be the biggest thing you do to set yourself up for success in 2021. And those are the three key things for the year. Number one, prepare yourself for high performance by taking care of your mind and body. Number two, choose only the most important goals and break them down into long term and short term. Number three, create high performance systems through coaching, accountability, or communities that hold you to a standard of success. Those are the things that would help me the most. So I hope you take action, my friend, on what you've learned today so that 2021, no matter what happens this year, it will be the best year and a powerful year and a productive year, a purposeful year, and the biggest impact year of your life. That is my goal for you. That is my mission and intention for you, but you have to be the one to follow these three key steps to make it happen. And if no one has told you lately, my friend, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
