9 Ways This Time Next Year Your Life Can Be Better

To listen to the blog post “9 Ways This Time Next Year Your Life Can Be Changed For The Better” over reading it click the play button below.  

A year from now you’ll wish you started today because this time next year your life can be different if you want it to be.  A year from now where do you see yourself? So many people want to create a 5-year plan or even a life plan but life can throw you curves balls.  There is nothing wrong with planning for your life but it is always much easier and much more beneficial just to change your life one year from now.

This time next year is something that is not too close and not too far off because the danger of looking too far into the future is that the goals seem so far away and we forget to do the immediate things that need to be done right here and now.  This is why I always recommend looking at where you want to be a year from now and plan for that first. Because I can almost bet that a year from you’ll wish you had started today.

A lot can change in a year. In a year I lost 40 pounds, I became healthier, I decided to get more serious about building my brand, I started making money from my blog, and I became a full-time entrepreneur. Which were all a part of MY one-year plan at various times in my life. It was all a part of where I saw myself a year from where I was and it was a lot easier to make strides toward that as oppose to just stabbing in the wind without a plan and hoping for the best. So when you think of this time next year think of where you want to be.

1. This Time Next Year ~ What is my point?

My point is that ALOT can be accomplished in a year but the only way that you can accomplish these things is through PLANNING. I did not just up and lose 40 pounds in a year by accident, no I planned for it. I did not just start making money from my blog by accident, no I planned for it.

And ALL of these things were in my one year plan and they were where I saw myself in a year from now AND that I came up with tangible goals to ensure that I stayed on track with my plan. Where I am is no surprise to me. As in where I will be next year should not be a surprise to me because I already have my goals mapped out.

Any goal worth having is planned for. Never think for a minute that in a year you will somehow stumble upon the life you wanted by accident with no type of planning involved.  It typically does not work that way. Also, check out my blog on why people fail to reach their goals.

Did you know that you are more likely to complete goals when you have written them down?  So I am going to teach you how to envision yourself a year from now AND how to come up with your one year plan to help you reach your goals. There is no use to writing down goals, it collecting dust. That is called a waste of time and will lead to a bunch of frustration on your part. I will show you how to create a plan that can be acted upon.  Also check out my video below on the not so hidden Bible techniques of getting what you want.

I do believe that I have rambled enough and so let’s get into it shall well.

2. This Time Next Year ~ Envision Where Do You Want To Be A Year From Now

A year from now you’ll wish you started today, so the first thing you want to do is actually know where you want to be in a year from now. It is not really going to help to come up with a one year plan if you do not know where you are going. And you cannot just do something ambiguous like you see yourself making money. No, you need to know how you see yourself making more money, in what field, etc.

• Do you see yourself in a better job? If so then where?

• Do you see yourself making more money? If so then how and doing what?

• Do you see yourself moving to another state? If so then why, what you do plan to accomplish there?

• Do you see yourself weighing less? If so what do you need to change in your life to do that?

A year from now you’ll wish you started today so whatever it is that you want you need to be able to spell these things down as exact.  The more specific you are, the better it will be to come up with your one year plan. I am SOOO about dreaming big.  If you see yourself making 6 figures and you only make about 50K now then go for it because it has been done before.  If you can dream it then you can achieve it (Click here to read my blog). But just know that it will also require hard work AND a plan to get there. Don’t just talk about it but BE about it.

When you think about what you want to do this time next year, the only thing I would caution you about is not being realistic. You can say you want to finish medical school by next year, but if you do not have a bachelor’s degree yet that is not going to happen. A BS degree takes about 4 years and then you still have to go to med school. So it would not be possible to finish med school in a year. So whatever your goal is to be sure that it is big but still reachable. Otherwise, when a year from now comes you will become disappointed because you did not reach your goals that were impossible to reach anyway.

A year from now you’ll wish you started today BONUS: As a bonus, you can go to Futureme.org where you can write your future self a letter and have them deliver the letter a year from now. Talk about where you are now and where you want to be in the future. I have done this a few times and there is no better feeling than when you have a letter delivered and you realized that you are exactly where you wanted to be, and you wrote the letter a year ago. It will start to show you that goal setting and planning does pay off.

3. This Time Next Year & The One Year Plan ~ What Can You Control & What You Can’t

Now that you know where you want to be in a year from now, you need to think realistically in terms of what is going for you and what can potentially hold you back. Knowing these things upfront and planning for them will help you be able to reach your goals despite the roadblocks you may face because you were already aware of them beforehand. I am the type of person where I like to think of something from all angles.  What can hold me back and what can go wrong. This is not thinking negatively BUT rather this is thinking about potential problems that may arise so you can plan for them now.

4. Things To Consider If You Want To Be In A New Place This Time Next Year

• What are some of the things that are in my control that is going to get me there?

• If you want to get your business off of the ground in a year from now, then look at the things that are in your control.

• Do you have the ability to network with people?

• Go to conferences that can help you out?

• Do you need to get a business licensed?

This can be different for everyone depending on your goals, but to answer the question, you need to write down what you can do that will get you to reach your goals. The more things that you can get under your control the better it will be in reaching your year from now goals. What you have to worry about are the things that are NOT under your control.  Now answer this question.

5. This Time Next Year ~ What are some things that are NOT within my control that will hold me back?

A year from now you’ll wish you started today BUT you can only do what is within your means.  This could be that you do not have enough money to do what you need to do. You want to network but lack the ability or money to go to conferences. Or there may be limited resources in your area. Or even you may not feel that you have time to do everything that you need to, to get everything done. Whatever you feel that is not in your control write it down so you can answer the next question:

6. Even though I feel that the above things are not in my control, how can I NOT allow these problems to hinder me in my goals?

A lot of the things that are not in your control can be put back under your control. For example, if money is one of the things that you feel is not in your control, then perhaps you can get a part-time job to get more money. Or even donate plasma or blood for extra money.  And yes I am being SOOOO serious. If you need money to reach your goals then find money in all the LEGAL avenues that you can of course. No area is off-limits.

I did a video on things that I did for extra money while I was working toward my business that you can view below and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel by clicking here.  But it is better to know a plan now to avoid potential problems than to wait for the problem is here and you do not know how to navigate it.

It is a lot easier to pull the things that you feel are NOT under your control back into your control. It may not be like this for every issue you have, but really try to find a way to master the things that could hold you back. If you cannot get them under your control then at the very least come up with a plan so that these issues do not hinder you from reaching your goals.

7. This Time Next Year One Year Plan ~ Take Small Steps Toward Your Goal

I have spoken about this in a previous blog post, but the way to reach your goals is to make sure that you take small steps first toward the bigger goals (click here to read that blog). And that is the beauty of the year from now plan that you can plan month by month and week by week on what to do and it does not seem so far off.  There are 12 months in a year so it is better to break things up by the month so you can monitor if you are making progress toward your goals or not.

Start off the month by asking yourself what are my goals and just like your one year plan make sure that the goals are reachable by the month. I also find it easy to then break the goals down on what you will do per week to reach the goal for the month and then break then down on what you can do to reach the goals for the week.  Ideally, when you are done you will have action steps you need to do every day that will complete the goals for the week, that will complete the goals for the month, which will lead you to complete the goals for the year.

When the middle of the month rolls around, then you give yourself an evaluation.  If you are halfway to your goals, then great. If not then be honest with yourself AND find a way to fix it. Even if you do not finish the month’s goal, then add them to the next month. That way you know that everything is being handled and nothing is being dropped and you know that you are actually moving toward your overall goal.

The only way you are going to reach your one year plan is if you are actually meeting the smaller goals you set for yourself. So instead of ignoring the goals that you did NOT meet. You will just have to add them to the next month until you do meet them thus ensuring that will you reach your year from now goal.

8. A Year From Now You’ll Wish You Started Today ~ Finally A Year From Now

Once you have made it to a year mark then once again it is time to evaluate yourself and start again. Hopefully, you are exactly where you thought you would be or close. Either way, you need to ask yourself these questions before moving on to your next year’s plan. Remember the only way you get anywhere in life is by mapping things out.  Just because you did a one year plan and may or may not have reached your goals does not mean the planning stops.

9. A year from now you”ll wish you started today ~ First-Year Evaluation

• Am I where I thought I would be? Why or why not?

If the blame is on you as to why you did not complete your goals then own it.  If you put too much on yourself and your goals were not realistic, own that too.  You need to know why you did or did not reach your goals so that you do not make the same mistakes again.

• Is there anything that I could have done differently?

There have been times that I have set goals and I did not reach them, and when I looked back there was a lot of could have done differently. I could have applied for more jobs (when I was looking for a higher paying job). Also, check out my blog on getting the ultimate job search.  It was those little things that I did not think were a big deal at the time that caused me to fall short on my goals. In my journey to become an entrepreneur, it took me so long because I was not doing my best and I really had to get real with myself on that and once I did, things got a lot better.  Watch my video below for more on that.

• Have my Goals changed or are they the same? Do I need to refocus?

You may think you want something a year from now but once you start working toward it your goals may have changed or you may not want what you thought that you wanted. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is just time to refocus.

If your goals have changed then simply change them and now you have new goals to reach.  Do not beat yourself up because you felt like this whole time you were working toward something that you now no longer want. Even failed goals are a learning experience.

• Am I satisfied with the progress I have made in the past year? Why or why not?

Be honest, if you have not gotten anywhere in your one year plan then why is that? I cannot imagine that getting NOWHERE will make you happy.  And oftentimes when we get nowhere in our goals unless you have a life-threatening illness that prevented you from doing anything because you were fighting for your life. The reason that you did not get anywhere is for a reason, find out what that reason is and change it.

If you KNOW that you worked your butt off and you still did not reach your goal, then you should feel satisfied in some way because there was nothing else that could have been done as long as you know that you really did do and try your best.

• Were there some things that were uncontrollable that I could have changed?

Sometimes things happen to us and we just allow them to happen. We may have trusted the wrong person and they took advantage (which was a controllable situation because perhaps you should have done better research on that person).  Or perhaps you lost your job.  Those things happen but often times we can do something to reverse the effects. Therefore, be honest with yourself and write down any things that happened to you that were NOT in your control that you could have done a better job controlling it.

• Were there events that were not in my control that hindered my progress?

Life happens, there are some things that happen that we cannot control and hinder our goals. If that is the case and there was nothing you could have done about it. Forgive yourself and move on. Examples are, your business may have gotten struck by lightning, and the entire building burned up. Or the entire world ended up in quarantine.

Of course, you cannot control lightning. BUT going with the theme of getting things under your control, ideally, you would have paid for insurance for your business so the loss was not as great and you can still get paid for the building. Are you starting to get my drift? Things do happen, but even the uncontrollable things teach us lessons.

Like if the whole world is in quarantine and this shut your business down, perhaps now it is time to think “How can I set up my business in a way that the next time this happens I can still make money.” Does that mean setting up a store online so that even if your store is closed physically you still have an online store people can order from?  Think along with those terms.

• How can I apply what I learned this year to future goals?

No matter if you are successful in your one year plan or a failure.  There is something that you have learned from this experience, something that you can take with you on to future goals.  You need to figure out what that is so that you do not make the same mistakes going into the future.

Using the example above, if your business got struck by lightning, caught fire, and you did not have insurance, then next time you know to buy insurance when you go back into business again. Learning from your mistakes will help you prevent future mistakes WHICH will, in turn, help you reach your goals.

Alright everyone, here you have your one year plan in a nutshell so that you can be in a different and a much better place a year from now.  If you know someone that can use this information then please feel free to share this post.