Today is the day of the year that has filled the most hope and optimism.

That’s right!

Whatever goals or resolutions you’ve set for yourself, I’m excited for you!

We’re all trying to improve ourselves, and even though things haven’t turned out the way we wanted in the past, we hope this time it will be different.

Musician Nick Cave describes hope as “the optimism of a broken heart,” and I think that’s very accurate. We all try to be different when change is so hard.

If you’re trying to build a new workout habit or change a number on the scale this year, I salute you. Setting a goal to change is highly commendable.

But to give ourselves the best chance of achieving our goal, we need to combine the goal with self-reflection and self-awareness.

Here are TWO questions to ask yourself as we begin 2025…

Question 1: What’s different this time?

I’m proud of you to start over.

But what is different about this essay?

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

If you choose the same goal or strategy that you tried in the past (unsuccessfully), the end result will be the same: another lost year of “why can’t I get my act together?”

So note what’s different this time!

Don’t “go on XYZ diet” or “cut out all sugar forever” or “train for a marathon” again, especially if you’ve tried those things before and couldn’t.

Something must be different this time:

• Make fewer changes.
• Pick ONE goal and focus on it.
• Choose a different workout routine.
• Choose a different diet or nutrition change.
• Choose a different time of day to train.
• Recruit a friend to join you so you’re not alone.
• The new behavior you want to perform ,beneficial or necessary,.

Prove to yourself that you have learned something from past attempts. Don’t let past failures get you down – they’ve shown you what doesn’t work for you

Try something different this time!

Question 2: What are you afraid of?

You’re in the moment right now, which is great.

But three weeks from now, life will happen, and something will go wrong.

What has been your tendency in the past when this happens?

we ask each one ,NF Coaching client, before you start, “what are you most nervous about?”

That answer is something they know from past attempts:

Are you going to be busy and want to “take a break until things slow down?” Excellent! Now you know that when that little voice in your head says this, you can prepare for it, plan to do something else and decide not to. be to hear that voice in your head.

Are you going to have a bad day and go completely off the rails? Excellent! Now you know that when you have a bad day you can forgive yourself, not look back with anger or guilt and get back on track.

Will you give up, even if you really, really want to move on? Excellent! This happens to all of us when we lose motivation after a few weeks. Consider ,Adding the Covenant of Ulysses, to protect yourself from your weaknesses or make a bet with a friend to hold you accountable.

Matt Myers was most recently the NF coach ,The Mental Golf Podcast with Josh Nichols, – and at the 24:30 mark of the episode, Matt revealed something to Josh that surprised him:

“You told me before I started, ‘I know I’m going to go out the gates HARD, but after 3 weeks, I’m going to burn out and be gone.’

And I said, ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ and I had all these alarms and alerts ready to check in with you again and again around day 21!

Josh had the self-awareness to know where he would screw up in the future, he and Coach Matt planned and overcame it together.

Since then, they’ve worked together for two months (and counting), and Josh has only missed one day of check-in and missing one day hasn’t triggered Josh’s normal all-or-nothing behavior!

This time may be different

We all intend to change, and even self-awareness…

We often bite off more than we can chew:

Our goals and expectations often outweigh the fact that we are mere, busy, complicated human beings living unpredictable lives.

It’s okay!

If we are aware of these things, we can try in another way… even if it is this the next the attempt doesn’t work either, we can remove that strategy from the list of possible successful paths and try again.

That’s what life is all about, anyway: try, fail, adapt, restart.

-Steve

PS: If you don’t want to go on this trip alone, I would be honored if you could go ,NF Coaching Program,.

Our coaches are awesome and we’d love to help you reach your goals. We’ve had a ton of sign-ups these past few days, which makes me really excited to help a lot of new people.