Make the most of the first week of the year

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” - Abraham Lincoln

2023 is finally here! A friend of mine used to joke that I am the type of person who goes "New Day, New Me" so you can imagine I'm all about the "New year, New me!" energy.

One of my goals this year is to release a blog post every week - so please hold me to that.

So, for this week, I wanted to share what I think we can do differently in the first week of 2023 to ensure that we make the most of the year. While it may be tempting to hit the ground running, and start working on those new habits that you'd like to develop, I believe it a much more effective strategy to spend some time (I usually dedicate the first 21 days of the year) to planning, strategising and putting together systems in place to ensure that you not only start developing new habits, get rid of old destructive ones, but that you can sustain the momentum throughout the year. With that in mind, I propose the following few things we can dedicate our time doing this week in order to get going on planning, or "sharpening the axe" and to prepare the ground for all the things we want to accomplish this year.

Firstly, last year, I shared a 21-day goal-setting challenge and would like to encourage you to try it as it takes you step-by-step through lessons and reflections as you work on your yearly goals and break them down into daily plans and habits.

In addition to that, this week I encourage us to:

1. Review the year that was, in order to celebrate the gains and to learn the lessons that you need to take into 2023. The Year Compass is one of my favourite tools to do this.

2. Begin working on our 90-day goals using one of my favourite tools, Blueprint by Joe Duncan available in this link.

3. Begin working on your personal financial plan / budget. I use the 22 Seven App and good old excel to help me with this. (By the way, I think anyone between the ages of 25 and 45 has no excuse not knowing how to use excel effectively in this day and age - no shade).

It is said that doing the same thing every single time and expecting a different result = madness. Therefore, I really want to encourage all those who feel sick and tired of being sick and tired, in any of the 8 dimensions of their lives, to challenge themselves to trying something different and to commit to showing up every single day differently.

Till next week.

Likeleli M.