Five Steps To Make 2019 Your Best Year Ever

Good Morning, New Year!  Let’s take steps to make 2019 the BEST year ever.

I just finished reading my morning devotional and was enjoying the last few sips of my coffee while scrolling thru my Instagram feed. Seeing all of the happy faces and year in review photo collages made me smile 🙂

My husband (Scott) came into the room while I was reading a post on Instagram by our daughter-in-law Emily, she shared a cool thing that her group did to bring in the New Year. They ate 12 grapes at midnight. Sweet grapes to represent the months that were lucky and Sour grapes for the months that were not so lucky. 

That led to a conversation about our year in review…what were some of the highlights…the best and worst parts. I realized that I didn’t do a very good job of journaling in 2018. Thankfully, the things that quickly came to mind were lucky (blessings) and the unlucky (challenges; loss/obstacles/setbacks) were minimal. 

Frankly, I don’t believe in luck anymore….I look at it as blessings or challenges. As for the challenges, even though I don’t appreciate or enjoy having them, they have often ended in blessings. The upside of the challenges; they led to becoming stronger, more grateful and a little wiser.

All that to say I’m ready to pick up where I left off yesterday and finish putting my plan on paper for making 2019 the BEST year ever. 

Here are the steps I plan to use to make 2019 the BEST year ever.

Clarity – be clear on what’s important 

Write it down – make a list of everything that I want to accomplish this year. If it’s not written down it’s very unlikely that it will happen. 😉

Focus – every morning and every night before I go to bed I am going to look at my list and get a clear picture of what it will look like and feel like at the end of the year to have accomplished my goals.

Consistency – this year I am going to daily track my progress…tracking what I eat, what I spend, my daily rituals. This will show me if I’m staying true to what I say is most important and also help me make adjustments as needed.

Persistence – know in advance that there are going to be challenges, obstacles, setbacks and even people that will get you down and attempt to get you off track. NEVER GIVE UP!!!

Keep your eyes fixed on the end results and don’t beat yourself up if you mess up along the way…I’m very good at beating myself up, so this year I’m going to practice being kinder to myself and staying focused on the person that I want to be. 🙂

Run your own race….don’t compare yourself or your life to other people!  

I’ve heard so many people talk about how depressed or discouraged they get when they see the posts of friends, family or colleagues on social media…doing things that are adventurous and exciting, taking vacations to awesome places, buying bigger houses, nicer cars and clothes…the list is endless.

Keep in mind that it’s easy to post things that make the picture look good, but frankly, you often don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes in peoples lives…things that aren’t so happy and exciting. Remember, we all have things we would rather not share, disappointments, hurts and losses.

Learn to be grateful for what you have…

There is so much research showing that being grateful leads to being happier. This is one of my main objectives for this year…learning to be grateful in every circumstance…good or bad. Notice I said, learning to be grateful! For the most part I am very grateful, but there’s always room for improvement. It’s definitely a mindset shift and something that I am determined to do.

Cheers to eating more sweet grapes than sour grapes and making 2019 the BEST year ever!

Wendy