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hi guys and welcome to another video
podcast if you're not familiar I do have
a podcast where you can listen to it if
you're in the car or whatever the video
versions here if you just want to watch
it instead it's really just kind of your
preference maybe what you're doing with
the day so it's called only looking up
and you can find that anywhere that you
stream your podcasts and they're also
quite chatty so grab a cup of coffee and
like we can just get started I do have a
plan of what I want to talk about today
and that is how to finish the Year
Strong
I personally am such a goal setter I
just love new years it's my favorite
holiday of all time and we're halfway
through the year right now which is a
great time to reflect on maybe the
things that we forgot about that we were
going to do with the year and there's
still like plenty of time in the year
where you could definitely achieve some
things that you had in mind so here's my
plan on how to live the rest of the year
to the fullest when I was engaged to
Zack one thing that someone told me was
Bethany just squeeze every little bit of
happiness out of this moment and I've
kind of kept that with me and I've tried
to put that in practice not only when we
were in our engagement time but also
like through our marriage and just you
know being a daily living human it's
really important to set intention and
that's really the goal of everything
that I talk about here is what am i
intentionally trying to do with my life
with my clothes with anything that I buy
am I doing it with intention am i doing
it with like leaning into my own
thoughts and and not just being
influenced by what other people are
saying I should buy or trends I should
follow etc okay that's a rant that's a
tangent I'm going to stay on track here
the first thing that I want to talk
about today is a little tip that I
learned from my book that I have right
here it's called high-performance habits
and I'm halfway through the book right
now I've been reading it all year
and taking little nuggets of advice and
putting them into practice and one
little nugget that I want to share is to
when you're in between moments like okay
a good example is if you're trying to go
through traffic and you're in really
heavy traffic and you drive home and now
you've got to walk into your house and
see people that you know and love that's
a moment in your life when you breathe
release and set intention and I feel
like that sounds so geeky and cheesy
when I say it but it works so well
because it makes you live in the moment
it sets intention and you're letting go
of whatever you just dealt with and
there's several moments in the day where
this is important it could be when you
wake up to when you stand out of your
like stand up out of your bed to when
you go work out to after your workout
and like just moving through those
moments in your day is just to breathe
release and set intention and actually
quite a few of the tips that I want to
talk about today are from this book that
I'm reading I feel like I am such a geek
when it comes to goal-setting
I Love New Year's it's my favorite but
also I just I just listen to all sorts
of podcasts about goal setting and
achieving your dreams and all these
things I just love to write down my list
of goals and not only look at them once
a year but actually break them down into
little tiny pieces and put them into
practice and then look back at the end
of the year and see how much that I can
put together as like a paragraph of what
I accomplished that year and that
thought of just winning that winning
mindset just puts me in this propeller
of trying to win more and achieve more
and it's just something I really love to
talk about I love to do I'll put any
resources by the way that I love to
listen to down in the description text
so look there if I forget to mention one
I will definitely list it down below so
this kind of brings me to the next topic
that I want to talk about which is to
set specific goals what you don't want
to do whenever you set goals and maybe
you're looking back at the goals that
you made in January and it looks
something like this
drink more water exercise more I don't
know like things like that that are
relative there they're not really
measurable you don't know when you've
achieved them and you're likely to have
forgotten why you were going to do that
in the first place so instead I like to
set specific goals that are in
categories so that I feel well-rounded
in my life I believe it was Michael
Hyatt described this as pegs in a wheel
where each peg is a category in your
life and you need all of those pegs in
your life to turn the wheel
I believe Dan Miller has talked about
this too he has a book called 48 days to
the work you love it was so moving and
really helped me think about the things
that I like to do in my life that I
could make careers out of so some
specific goals that I like to set are
how many ounces of water I want to drink
in a day I actually asked my dietician
how many I should be drinking some
people have different views on this but
yeah it's just really interesting to be
able to set measurable goals and then
make them ones that you can win at some
people like to overachieve without
actually breaking down baby steps of how
to get there I would say baby steps are
so key so my goals list not only include
specific goals I have some that are high
Farfetch'd if you will that I don't even
know how to get there they're just a
dream and so then what I want to do is
break them down into baby steps that I
know I can start moving that direction
now and then I from there try to figure
out things I could do every day or every
week or whatever that could set me on
that goal of actually putting it into
practice my third tip is kind of related
to that is putting it in my calendar I
use my calendar specifically iCal for
everything I use it not only like
everyone else in the world like a
schedule but I also use it as a to-do
list and the journal so what I do is I
will have my day planned out I have
maybe just a little chicken scratch list
of things to do
on paper but then I want to actually
take it to my calendar and put them as
to-do items the to-do items I make
all-day events that I put at the top of
my day when I think I can do that so if
it's if tomorrow I think yes I can
definitely do this item tomorrow that's
going to be in my calendar as an all-day
event and then when I actually feel like
I can find time to do it I'm gonna drag
that item down in my day and find a time
to do it this also works as a journal
because the next week I can look back at
what I did this week and kind of assess
what there was to do in that week so I
can look back to and see them
color-coordinated if you want to get
really techie and really really into the
calendar thing I like to color
coordinate so that I can look past it
look at my past week and see where how
much I worked out or when I worked out
did I miss days that I really shouldn't
have should I have been resting more
like you want to put rest time on there
too and that's another reason why color
coordinating works is because instead of
looking at my last week and seeing just
blocks of time it looks really busy like
I worked a lot when really I might have
been watching Netflix or whatever like
stuff that isn't work which is also very
appropriate rest time is really
important and that brings me to my next
point which is the idea of a work-life
balance a work-life balance can be a bit
of a mystery or a myth or a lot of
people debate how to make that work or
how much you should how many hours you
should be putting in to rest versus work
I actually don't think it has anything
to do with hours it has more to do with
the quality of time that's actually what
this book is talking about - I just
stumbled up upon this exact topic when I
was coming up with ideas for this in
this idea of a work-life balance I've
been trying to sort this out in my own
life anyways how many hours should you
be working versus maybe working out
they're not going to be the same amount
of hours right so it has to do more with
quality
it has to do with more with fulfillment
michael hyatt has an amazing assessment
on this where you can assess how strong
do you feel in your fitness or your
health right now how fulfilled do you
feel in your career right now and that
could be a sign that you could shift
things around in your day there is
another piece of advice which is to look
back at your last week and see how much
time was spent on things that really
didn't matter that you could have
completely gotten rid of in your day
like for me that would definitely be
emails I subscribed to so many emails
and I just think that I spend a whole
lot of time trying to sort through
everything and I just feel like even the
sorting through is time not spent to the
best of of what I could have been doing
and so instead I can completely
eliminate parts of my day that I'm
spending an enormous amount of work time
and instead actually do something more
productive with my time that I love
doing another way that you can do this
is to delegate anything that maybe
you're just not particularly good at or
enjoy like one thing I started doing
when I came to a bigger city is grocery
delivery is no joke it saves me so much
time that I really didn't like doing I
don't particularly enjoy getting my
groceries especially if there's a lot of
them and so once a week maybe not even
once a week maybe like once every couple
weeks or even once a month I will get my
groceries delivered when I need to have
that happen the most and that has helped
me to instead spend time creating videos
or working out or spending time with
family or anything like you name it and
so finding little pockets of time where
maybe you could be doing something else
that you are irreplaceable at that is so
worth your time on things that you love
doing it doesn't necessarily have to
have a dollar sign attached to it of how
much you're making or not making or
whatever instead focus on
how much fulfillment you're getting out
of that time and that my friends is how
you're going to make 2019 your year and
I feel like this is a blessed moment
because the Sun just popped through
really bright and I just feel like this
is my moment to speak my truth which is
I love goal-setting and I feel like it
really is how I make the most of my year
and I swear the thing that you really
need to do though after you look back on
everything that you've accomplished in
2019 write them down make sure that
you're writing down every little small
increment of achievement that you're
you've done that you've wanted to start
for putting into your life and having
fulfillment in write down everything in
more of a paragraph form of things that
you accomplish for the year and you can
do that now you don't have to wait till
it's December you can do that you know
as soon as you have created a good
amount of list of things that you've
accomplished for the year and maybe even
write another paragraph of things that
you would love to see in your life that
you could make happen with the rest of
these six months my final tip has
absolutely nothing to do with things
like calendars and to-do lists and all
that but actually something that you can
start putting into your own daily
routine when you're talking with other
people and that is to speak positively
and adding positive comments into your
daily conversations one way that I did
this is when I was about 18 I found that
I had one absolutely amazing friend that
just was like the best friendship that
I've ever experienced before
and what I did is I made up my mind to
just never speak poorly about that
person under any circumstance to anybody
even just like jokingly or whatever and
what ended up happening with that
friendship is that I felt personally
very strongly that there was nothing
that could have been twisted or
misunderstood so when I was talking
specifically with that person we had no
boundaries or any like secrets or weird
stuff and it was just an honest good
friendship then I started doing that
with more and more people in my life to
where people started taking notice that
when everyone else was kind of chumming
it up about somebody jokingly and that I
didn't really participate in that so
much and they in turn found that they
could confide in me about anything and
it would never get out to anybody else
and that had its own ramifications in my
life when I would just try to be a more
positive person when I would try to
think positively about other people
that's not to say that you can't
completely get rid of negative people in
your life like there's times when
they're you know family or coworkers or
whatever it is you sometimes you just
got to work together but the more that
you make conversations positive or if
there is drama just go like a grey rock
method is what I've heard it described
as meaning if people try to cause drama
just be like oh yeah mm-hmm okay
like just be completely boring to where
they're not going to try to make you
participate in drama and just having
more of a positive aspect about other
people like a positive insight or
viewpoint about other people has really
helped me not only in career but in
friendships and just my own confidence
of knowing that other people aren't
going to get the wrong impression about
something that I said and hopefully in
six months time that piece of advice
helps you look back at your year and
looking at the absolutely amazing
aspects of other people because very few
people on this earth if anybody is
perfectly good or perfectly bad like we
all have redeeming qualities and so just
being more positive about other people
can be a really impactful thing and in a
nutshell those are my tips for how to
make the most out of your year I hope
that this is inspiring
I will definitely link you guys down
below in the description text where you
can find
all the people that I listen to for
podcasts and the books I read regarding
goal-setting and just having a more
fulfilling everyday life and hopefully
this was helpful if it was be sure to
like it and share it and I'll see you
guys next time
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