280: Setting Yourself Up for Success in the New Year

Extraordinary is a choice. Take that in, soak it up because the hustle grind repeat mantra that society has been touting for decades. It add it all wrong. I’m Tanya Dalton. I’m a seven figure entrepreneur, best selling author, speaker, mom and rule breaker. I’m here to help you live to your fullest potential. That’s what this podcast is all about. The Intentional Advantage is doing live on our own terms define the status quo, and seeing ourselves outside of the tiny definitions society’s made for us. It’s intentionally choosing to step back away from the chaotic rush of your everydays. And choosing, choosing to see that it’s your world. And it’s filled with opportunities. Let’s challenge the bedrock beliefs that so many have wholeheartedly trusted, because we were told they were truths. Let’s have a healthy disregard for the impossible. Let’s choose to be extraordinary.

Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Intentional Advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 280. And today, we’re talking about setting yourself up for success in the new year. Now hold on, just in case you’re not listening to this live, let’s say it’s October and you’re catching up on this episode. This is still a fabulous episode for you. Because let me let you in on the biggest secret out there. There’s nothing magical about January 1. I think so often, we have it in our heads that if we want to make shifts or changes in our life, if we want to set goals or we really want to set that path for ourselves, we have to do it in January. And there’s nothing magical about January. So if you’re listening to this episode long after it’s gone live today, right now, this is a fabulous opportunity to set yourself up for success. In today’s show, we’re going to talk about how you can really create those daily actions all season long during this season of purposeful productivity, where we’ve been talking about how we can really be productive with purpose, I think it’s so important to talk about those daily actions. And that’s been kind of the the red thread that we’ve been weaving throughout this entire season. That it’s not about these giant leaps, we get so caught up in the big giant leaps. And so often it feels like where we are now. And where it is we want to go is this giant chasm, like the Grand Canyon. And the truth is, that can be really daunting, it can be really scary. And we can start, you know, succumbing to some of the imposter syndrome of like, ooh, who am I to do this, or, Oh, this will never happen for me because of where I am today. And the truth is, you don’t have to jump across the Grand Canyon, you can take one foot in front of the other step by tiny step, every single day, you can make it down the canyon walls and cross the Grand Canyon, you can actually do that in a day.

But we get caught up in this idea of the giant leaps. But what I want us to dive into today is taking all of those things that we’ve talked about throughout the season, co starting and creating the plan with the end in mind, letting go of the perfect plan, prioritizing, really leaning into what it is you want and you desire. Because that’s honestly, the big underlining theme of this this season on productivity with purpose is it’s really about customizing it for you. And we talked about that quite a bit. In the last episode, we talked about designing your days to to be more productive back in episode 279. Because it really is customizing it so it fits you. So let’s talk about how we do that. All right. That’s what I’m excited about today. Because I feel like this, this is the this is the game changer when you start to really understand that it’s your choices, that you get to choose how your day flows. That’s when we really step into our power. That’s really when we feel very productive. But the problem is, and especially at the time of year where I’m recording this, which we’re in the holiday season, New Year’s is well as I’m recording it New Year’s around the corner for those of you listening as it goes live, New Year’s has just happened. And we’re in the first week of the new year. And one of the big things that always happens, right this time of year is that we start setting these new year’s resolutions. And then the new year’s resolutions don’t happen and we feel terrible. We feel bad about ourselves. We are oh I’m the worst. I never follow through I never write and we get really caught up in how we’ve done everything wrong. And the truth is, it’s not you and I shared this statistic actually in my second book and On Purpose. But here’s something I want you to realize. 81% of people fail to follow through on their New Year’s resolutions and polls 81%. And here’s the biggest one, I think there is a staggering 23% drop off in the first week alone, which means for those of you listening live right now, there’s a good number of you who are like, Ah, I already fell, already fell off the horse. Right? I set this big goal a couple of days ago, and I’ve already fallen off 23% drop off, I’m going to read to you what I say this is actually on page 89 of On Purpose. So I say, why is that you might ask? Because most people don’t tie their goals to a bigger vision. They don’t take time to ask that fearless question. Why? Why am I thinking about doing this? Why do I think this will improve my life? Why do I want to do this at all? Here’s a bold statement. If the goals you set don’t have a long term benefit, they’re not worth your time, if you’re looking for a quick win, you’re gonna get that winning feeling. And that’s going to quickly disappear, which leaves you jonesing for that high. This is referred to as the goal setting paradox, a very real, very measurable drop in life satisfaction after a goal is achieved. So that’s on page 89. Of On Purpose. And I want you to think about that. So we feel bad when our goals or our New Year’s resolutions don’t happen. And then we feel bad a lot of times after we’ve already achieved them. And this is the reason why this happens is we get caught up in setting goals for the wrong reasons. We look around, and we think oh, this woman over here is doing amazing things, I should do more of what she’s doing. Or oh, if this competitor started doing these things, so I need to do these things in my business, or, Hey, somebody else who is, you know, at the same level, in my company, they’re doing these things, so I should be doing those things too. And so our goals don’t get aligned with what we really want. They are aligned with who we are in our heart of hearts and our true desires, which means our goals are not customized and personalized to us. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes, you know, and with these goals that are aligned or not, we tend to fixate on the end result, all we think about is the finish line. One day, when I get my promotion, then I’ll be happy. So we’re looking for the goal to like solve anything that’s wrong in our life. Or one day, when I lose, you know, the 20 pounds, then I’m going to be happy. We’re constantly looking for this finish line. And if we’re so busy watching that finish line, we miss everything that got us there, we miss all those milestones. In an effort to achieve the big win, we discount all the small successes. And I know you’ve heard me say this before. But I think it’s worth saying, again, it’s not about managing our time, it’s savoring the moments, we get really caught up with controlling the time or making these big decisions about what we’re doing. And we lose sight of the joy of the happiness that’s hidden in the cracks and the crevices of our everyday lives. That’s where true happiness comes from. That’s really what success is all about. And we’ve talked about this idea of redefining success for yourself, that we need to choose what that looks like. But so often we look at what other people are doing. This is why I hate those lists that are like five things successful people do every morning, or three things you should never do. It drives me crazy. Because those things work for those people. That doesn’t mean that’s what you should do. That doesn’t mean that that’s the path to your happiness, we have to let go of worrying about what everybody else is doing. And really anchor in on what you want. What that big, beautiful vision is of the future for you. You’ll remember back in episode, I think it was in 272, where we talked about productivity with purpose. We talked about the six parts of you, financial, relational, physical, spiritual, recreational, emotional. So often we put all this emphasis on the financial aspect. And the financial aspect is money and revenue, of course, but it’s also possessions, title, status, the things that look really good to everybody else, when in truth, we need to make sure that we’re nurturing all those six parts, all those six parts are really important. And if they get neglected, this is when we feel a lot of that disjointedness or that being out of alignment that feels like and a lot of times when we’re out of alignment, we don’t say Oh, I’m out of alignment. We’re just like, something is off, or is this all there is or I’m just not doing enough? Something else we’ve definitely talked about this season. So you want to make sure you’re really taking care of yourself, but what can happen is you know some These can get left off of our list or they get ignored. Or we set goals that create a lot of tension between those parts of you. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you decide you want to double your quarterly revenue. So for the next 90 days, that is a big focus for you that you want to double the revenue. Okay, but if you also for that quarter set a goal of being home for dinner every night of the week. Yeah, that’s a lot of tension between your relational part of you, and the financial, do you see how sometimes we set goals that are contrary to one another and actually work against each other. There’s nothing wrong with setting a quarterly goal of doubling your your revenue during that quarter over what it was last year. But there’s also nothing wrong with saying I want to be home for dinner more often. So this is where we talk about, and we have talked about this numerous times on the show this idea of balance, how it doesn’t work, and we need to create harmony instead. This is why we want to and you’ll notice there, I talked about a 90 day goal. So often, we just set goals for the whole year, I think it’s really each quarter, you have a focus. So if your focus is something in that work sphere, and let’s say it’s doubling your revenue, we need to lean into that area. And we’ve talked about it in terms of like riding a bike, right to ride a bike can’t be in perfect balance, that won’t work. Not unless you want to go in one straight line forever, like Forrest Gump, we often want to turn and we want to go right, if you’re gonna go right, you have to lean to the right, you have to go out of balance, you can’t stay leaned over forever, you’ll fall over, you’ll scrape your knees, we have to counterbalance, and then we can go straight for a while. And then we can lean to the left. So it’s this beautiful harmony of leaning into the different areas of who you are at different times that eliminate some of that tension. So I want you to think about those goals that you’ve set for yourself, is there tension in some of those areas that make it so that there’s absolutely no way to achieve all of them? Or are you stuck, like stacking them all at the same time, because that’s the other thing people tend to do. All the goals start in January. And they were like, I don’t know why that didn’t work out. I don’t know why I’m exhausted or frustrated or overwhelmed. spreading things out is a really, really beautiful thing. And that’s really one of the things when I did that strategic planning circle, working with business owners that I’m in the middle of doing right now in January as well, just starting this week, we talked about this idea of leaning in and counterbalancing and creating that harmony for the whole year. That’s what I want you to think about are the goals that you’re setting working against each other, especially if you’re working at them. At the same time. We can’t commit to running a marathon and getting the promotion in the same quarter. Because that marathon is going to require a lot of time energy effort, which is also what’s required if you wanted to get the promotion. So we want to make sure that we’re really setting ourselves up for success. And I want you to think about you that whole concept of wayfinding that I dive into, in On Purpose. We talked about it too, during episode 251. With setting goals with impact, I want you to start with that end in mind. I want you to really think about what it is you want long term, I want you to think about how do you want to feel? That’s something that we’ve definitely touched on this season, when we talked about prioritizing and we talked about, you know designing your days. How do you want to feel so often we lose that compartment, that that section of ourselves? That is the emotional, there are six parts financial, relational, physical, spiritual, recreational, and emotional. How do you want to feel that feelings are where we really store our ideas of success? I want you to really think about that. I want you to think about how you’re moving through your day. Are you really ending your days? feeling amazing? Are you ending your days with your head hitting the pillow thinking? I did great things? Or are you feeling like you haven’t done enough? There’s this saying that I’ve heard time and time again, if you want to predict where you’re going to end up in life, just look at your daily actions, your daily choices, build and compound over time. So I want you to think about how do you want to feel each day? And how do you want to feel long term. Because when we choose how we want to feel and we set the course for feeling those emotions, whether it’s prepared or satisfied or excited or you know what present with your family, whatever those things are, and it changes each day. Every day. I have a focus word How do I want to feel at the end of the day? And I think I think we talked about that this season that I like to write it down. I like to write that focus word on my mirror with a dry erase marker. I like to set that intention for my day. And then I check in at the end of the day. So I write it when I’m brushing my teeth. And then I check in when I’m brushing my teeth at the end of the day. And I look at that word. And I think, how did I do today? Did I feel what I was looking for today? And it’s such a great check in because then I wipe it off the mirror and tomorrow is a fresh day. But each day, if I’m really being intentional, and I’m checking in with myself, How can I not feel successful? How can I not feel really good about the choices I’m making? It is the daily actions. Carl Jung says until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you’ll call it fate. It’s not fate, it’s not luck. It is you choosing what you want. It is you making those decisions, it’s you looking at the year, and saying, Okay, here’s really what I want at the end of the year. And here’s where I’m going to focus during each of the quarters. And here’s what I’m going to do to make sure I’m staying on track with it. These check ins are so important. I think this is why I love the idea of the focus word. And that’s something we’ve definitely talked about on the show before but having a focus word for your year, because that sets the intention for how you want to move forward for the next 365 days. And again, if you’re listening to this in May, you can set up your focus word of the year right now, to go from now through the end of the year, and then set up a new next January. I do that every year. And I feel like it really gives me that intentionality. Because then I set up my daily habits to really support that focus word of the year. So in the past, I’ve had focus words like I have had discomfort was one, during a year where I really wanted to grow, I knew it was gonna be uncomfortable. I knew that stepping out of what I’ve always done was going to feel challenging. And I wanted a word that reminded me, when I did feel uncomfortable that I chose discomfort, I chose growth, staying in the same place that’s really comfortable. That’s like sweats and Netflix on Friday night. Getting out of your comfort zone is where growth happens. So I chose discomfort one year, this coming year, my word of the year is engaged, not marriage wise, I’m really happy with John, this year, we’ll be celebrating 23 years of marriage super happy with him. But engaged in the sense of I want more than just connection. I saw I thought about you know, it’s not about being connected to people. It’s not about networking, it’s about the action behind it, really helping to support one another and reaching out on a regular basis to support other business owners, other women, other people that I think are doing amazing things. And so my word for this year is engaged. And so when I’m thinking through what I want to focus in on for each quarter, I have that in mind, I want to feel engaged. When I’m setting my focus word for each day, I’m thinking about that I’m checking in regularly, how am I doing? was reaching out to people? Am I texting people that I know? Am I reaching out through email and saying, Hey, let’s get on a virtual coffee date? Or am I am I saying hey, how can I support you? Because again, it’s not just about the lip service. For me. It’s not just about reaching out, it’s engaged. How can I support you? How can I help you? How can I think your message is amazing? What can I do to help get your message out even further, all of that is so important, right for me for this year. So that’s my focus word of the year. And so I’m going to create habits to make sure that happens. Do you see how having that intention, and then supporting it with my daily actions? Ah, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when we actually end our year thinking, wow, that was a, that was great. I did the things I wanted to do. So I do want to talk about this idea of habits in just a few minutes. Let’s first take a quick mid episode break. That’s actually something that’s really going to help you and it’s absolutely free. Speaking of habits, I want to help set you up for success in the new year by giving you an incredible habit that’s really easy to do. And it’s responsible for doubling my productivity. And that is the take five challenge. You can join my take five challenge. It’s five minutes a day, five days in a row to really establish a habit that it was a game changer when I started creating this habit for myself and it’s a five minute habit that I do every single day. Honestly it did. It doubled my productivity. It shifted everything for me. So I’ve created this take five challenge to make it even easier for you to instill this habit for yourself. And it’s free. Just go to Tanya dalton.com/take Five, or you can just go to my website TanyaDalton.com It’s right there on the homepage. Sign up and join the take five challenge. Five days, five minutes a day. That is it. And I have these little videos that are all five minutes or less, that walk you through how to establish this habit for yourself. So go to Tanya dalton.com/take Five right now. Okay, let’s talk about this idea of really being intentional, because that is how we’re going to set up the year for success. And really those habits that we’re going to create for ourselves, those are so key, which is why I really am hoping you know, during the mid episode break, I talked about the take five challenge, I really do hope you’ll join that. Because it did shift everything for me. And it’s so easy to start seeing how when we create habits, oh, it just changes everything in our day, it shifts everything. And right now, this is an ideal time to check in with your habits. How are my habits working for me? What are the things that I’m doing on a regular basis? I think so often we think is habits as habitual, which they are. And so they happen without us thinking. So stopping, taking a step back and saying, Okay, what are the things I do every day? What are the things I’m doing every year? What are the things I’m doing every week or every month and just doing a little self inventory. And you don’t have to spend a lot of time on this. Just walk through in your mind a regular day. Okay, I get up, I have a cup of coffee every morning, I you know, I go for a walk every morning I do these things, right? Just list out the things that you’re doing every day. And then think about each week. What are the things that I do on a regular basis? And then start to ask yourself that question. Do I like these habits because here’s the thing with habits, they are habitual. And they happen without us thinking about it. I’ve shared the stat before, but Duke University found that 45 to 50% of our daily actions every single day are habits every single day, everything from putting on your pants. Yep, you put in the same leg first to your shower routine is a habit, right? You don’t think about do I shampoo first? Or do I condition? Do I wash my body for that you probably have a whole routine, even if you don’t realize it. So really thinking through what are the habits I have? And do I like them? Are there any that I want to shift or change? Are there any that I want to add in? Especially as we’re thinking about starting with the end in mind? Where is it I want to be long term. You know, one of the habits that we really created for ourselves as a family is that idea of the team planning. And I touched on that earlier this season. I even have the video on YouTube of how I do this, setting up this Sunday routine of doing team planning with my children so that when they left my nest, this was always my intention. When my kids left my nest, they didn’t just fly, they soared and they did amazing things. And that was really important to me. Here’s the thing, I started that when my kids were really little doesn’t matter how old your kids are, if that’s something that you’re like, oh, I want that start it now doesn’t matter how old they are. Because what we want to do is we want to establish that habit for them. Where with my kids, we would talk about okay, you have a book report, how are you going to break that down, make it into milestones, let me go ahead and give you a quick little snapshot of what that looks like, long term, because now Jack is off in college. And he’s now a sophomore in college. And he wrote an essay not that long ago. And he said, Hey, Mom, you want to see this essay, I’m always happy to look over his essays and those kinds of things. But he talked about in his essay about the habits that he does on a regular basis. Oh my gosh, it makes me want to cry, honestly, because he talked about how, at the beginning of the week, he looks at his week at the you know, as a whole. And then he breaks it down all those things that we talked about in that last episode about how you can create that rhythm and that productivity for your week. My 19 year old is doing that for himself. You know why? Because we started doing that together as a family, I created that habit. And so he doesn’t even think about it. That’s thinking with the end in mind all along, I wanted my kids to go off and be productive and feel good about what they’re doing. He sets an intention for the week, he maps out what he wants to accomplish each day. And he’s doing incredible. Like I just if I could wrap up this gift to those of you who are parents. So you can see that when you get to this point with your kids, all that work, that investment that you do in them, creating strong habits for yourselves as a family. It pays off and it’s so amazing to see the fruition of all that. So this is why I want you to check in what are the things that you want that fit that intention that you have for this coming year? What are the things that you want to do not the things that you think you should do? What are the things you really want to do? And then really make it easy for yourself by habit stacking them creating these habit stacks. That’s, that’s what routines are. That’s what these morning rituals are or your evening routine. It’s just stacking one habit after the next and I did a great episode in the summer series. I’ll put a link in the show notes to it where we talked about, I think I called it like the easiest way to increase your productivity or something like that. I’ll put a link to this episode in the show notes. But habit stacking is simple, because you take a habit that you’re already doing, let’s say getting your morning coffee. That’s a big one for most people, not for me, because I don’t drink coffee, but most people do. Get up. You don’t think twice about whether you’re getting coffee. Right? Okay. So you get up and you want to start journaling more. Okay, well, instead of saying, I just need to journal more, and I’ll figure out a time to do that. Why don’t you stack that off of the coffee drinking, you’re already doing, leave your journal next to the coffeemaker. So when you’re stumbling your way across the house to the coffee maker, you get your coffee, and what’s right there, your journal. So then you’re like, oh, right brain gets triggered. Yes. Okay, I want to write my journal. So then you go and you sit down, and you do your journaling. And let’s say that you want to spend a little time doing something else. Okay, wherever you’re gonna go, journal, leave whatever you need there. Let’s say you want to go for a walk, leave your walking shoes, or your running shoes, wherever you’re gonna sit to journal, do you see how we create these little triggers these little cues, so that each action is like, oh, yeah, my shoes are here. After I, after I do my journaling, I’m gonna go for my walk, or I’m gonna go for a run. So we’re just stacking habits off of things we already are doing, we’re getting rid of any of the friction, that’s there. And that’s how we create a routine. And after a while, you don’t have to leave the journal next to the coffeemaker, you don’t have to leave the running shoes next to the area where you journal, because it becomes a habit. And it’s something we do automatically. But when you’re setting up the habit, we do want to have these little trigger points that are like, Oh, that’s right, I want to journal. Oh, that’s right, I want to go for a walk. See how that works. We take out all the friction. And for the things you want to get rid of, we add friction. So you take away friction, you take away any of the thinking any of the struggle to get it done. When you’re wanting to establish habits. When you’re wanting to break habits, we add friction. I mean, think of it this way, you want it start eating healthier. You put the cookies on the top shelf, you don’t put them at eye level where you see or you take the cookies out of the pantry altogether. That creates friction. Do you see how it’s not as easy? Like let’s say you have this habit right now of coming home going straight to the pantry and having a little cookie or having a little snack, okay, you take the unhealthy snacks, either a out of the pantry altogether, or higher up. So they’re not at eye level, and you put the healthy snacks at eye level. So when you walk in there, it’s like, Oh, yep, I’m going to eat this. Do you see how friction makes it possible to break the bad habits? Let’s say smoking is your bad habit. Think about where you go. When you smoke, do you is it at work, when you have a break? Do you have a certain area, okay, choose a different area to go to go somewhere else or find something else to fill that break, add friction. So it’s not as easy to do the habits that you don’t really feel align with your intention of what you want for this year. So this is the thing with habits is they’re so easy. Once they’re there, it’s setting them up and breaking them, that can be a challenge. And that just requires a little bit of thinking. But once it’s set, so easy, so easy to move through the world, and feel like you are being intentional, because you’ve set yourself up with these habits. So let me go ahead and give you a quick little New Year’s habit that I love to do. And again, let’s say you’re listening to this in January, great time to do it. You’re listening to this in March, great time to do this as well. Here’s what I like to do. And I love to do this. For myself, this is a tradition I’ve created and traditions are just another form of habit. This is a New Year’s tradition that I like to do, where I sit down, and I write down 20 things I want to let go of 20 things that I want to put into the past that I want to move through, I want to move past I don’t want to continue doing, I write down 20 things I want to let go off. And then I write them on individual sheets of paper and I toss them into the fire. And I let go of them. This can be emotions. This can be things that felt, you know, frustrating or things that I felt like held me back. This could be limiting beliefs. This could be stories and lies I told myself about what I should be doing or what I’m supposed to be doing or all of those things. I write down 20 things I want to let go of, then I write down 20 things that I’m proud of from the last 12 months. What are 20 things 20 Things can be a challenge. But here’s the thing, if I said to write down five, you joke surface level and I would two the first five are going to be surface level. The next five are going to go slightly deeper. The next five we’re gonna go deeper and the last five, you’re really going to be looking really intentionally at your year behind you. And then it’s like ah yes These are the things I’m proud of. We use those as our springboards, that’s going to show me where I want to go in the coming year. That’s what’s going to allow me to have that momentum. Look at all these things like, here’s 20 things that I’m proud of. This is incredible. I can do amazing things. And when I feel like I can do amazing things, the whole year spread before me like this amazing, blank slate of possibility. And I feel more excited. So I want to encourage you to do that. I’ve written these down in the show notes in case you want to go back over them, you can see the show notes at Tanya dalton.com. Just go to Episode 280. You’ll also find links to those episodes I talked about in there. And hey, guess what, you’ll also find the take five challenge sign up there as well. I would really love for you to try the take five challenge people take it and they’re like, This is amazing. It’s so simple. It’s so easy to do. And yet it’s monumental in the impact. It makes small huge movements, you know, those are my favorites, right? Simple to implement, easy to manage, but really huge and how they shift and change your life. So you can do that at TanyaDalton.com. This is episode 280. So all those notes will be there for you. Here’s what I want you to walk away from today’s episodes of thinking, I want you to realize that you are the one who gets to make the choices this year, you get to decide how you feel each and every single day. And that’s an amazing thing. And I want you to take hold of that and set that intention. No matter when you’re listening to this episode. What is it you want out of the next 365 days? How do you want to feel? What is your focus for the next year? How do you want to move through your days and then let’s let’s create the habits to support that to really make that happen. That’s how you set yourself up for success. And that’s how you have the Intentional Advantage.

Thanks so much for joining me today. Quick question though, before you go. Do you like prizes. When you leave a rating and review of the Intentional Advantage podcast you’ll be entered to win my life changing course multiplying your time, simply leave the review, and then send me an email at Hello at TanyaDalton.com with a screenshot, I choose one winner at the end of every month. So go ahead do it right now just a quick comment with what you loved about this episode or the show in general and a rating and send it our way. Not gonna lie by stars is my favorite. But I’d love to hear what you think of this show. And if that’s not enough of an incentive for you to win the multiplying your time course, I have to tell you reviews are the number one thing that supports this podcast and me, it’s the best way to spread the word and get business tips and strategies to all those other women out there who need it. So there you go. Two great reasons for you to go and leave a review right now. So go ahead and do it. Send that screenshot my way because I want to give you a free course. And thanks again for listening today. I’ll be back next Tuesday, and I’ll plan to see you then.

**This transcript is created by AI, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes. The Intentional Advantage is a top rated podcast for women.

Tanya Dalton is a female motivational speaker whose topics of productivity, habits, goals and time management have found her listed among the top women speakers.