God has big plans for you in 2023. Bigger than you can imagine. And they do not involve compromising your health, relationships, energy and resources.

The key here is to know that your dream was placed inside of you and it’s time to EMBODY it day by day and live your life in such a way that you WILL realize this vision.

And this will take a new way of thinking, committing, executing, building mental toughness and stretching yourself outside of your comfort zone.

Let’s set up your mindset with 5 truths that will squash your excuses and increase your mental fortitude to accomplish your goals for 2023!

1. Our excuses are lies

This is probably the biggest message I keep hearing in all my listening. Our personalities are hypocritical, caught in the opposing forces of striving to be better and making excuses for why we can’t do something.

“I don’t have time today, I am so tired. I have a headache. It’s raining”

Because you are part of my community, chances are you have been improving over the years through many modalities and forms of work and are equipped to squash these ambition-destroying excuses today.

However, it’s time to take it to the next level in 2023. This means closing ALL BACK DOORS!

For example, let’s use exercise to illustrate the point of how easily we are tempted to take a back door. In the past, the smallest of things would prevent us from going for a walk. A headache. The weather. It’s getting late. When exercise is just something you hope you’ll be able to do that day, even the smallest excuse is enough to derail you.

But when you commit and decide, and you close the back door, and you do not give yourself a reason why that won’t be done that day, you most likely will not miss a single workout. You will walk in the rain, you will wake up early if you knew the day would be too busy, but you would schedule it into your day and make sure it got done!

Magic happens when you remove the option of not doing the thing you said you would. It becomes something you have to do, like pick up your kid from school and as such, it will get done. No excuses.

2. We’re capable of more than we think

As another example here, if your God-inspired goals become that you must move daily for 30 minutes, change your thinking, write a book and declutter your home, your excuses might say “Who has time to workout every day, AND do a power hour on decluttering, AND pattern interrupt my self-judgment and start writing my new book?”

As it turns out, we do!

The teachings that COMMITMENT & MAKING A DECISION & CLOSING ANY BACK DOORS teach us are beyond what more hard work and effort can teach us. They will teach you that often you spend a lot of your time operating a mindset of choice. We do only the things that appeal most to us and are comfortable, and we can feel compelled to do at the precise moment it needs doing. Those 3 words above will also teach you that when you feel you haven’t got a way out, that there’s no alternative to getting it done, you WILL do it.

3. We give into temptation way too easily

This has long been a shortcoming of mine for sure. I used to get so distracted. Ultimately, it was/is lack of discipline. Most of us are masters at giving into temptation/distractions/excuses and rationalizing it to feel better about our decision. How often have you done that?

When we haven’t COMMITTED & MADE A DECISION & CLOSED ANY BACK DOORS, giving into temptation will be an automatic habit. This is why you haven’t been able to reach some of your goals.

Simply knowing that that task or thing was a MUST DO, completely eradicates the craving to break your promise or ditch it.

4. We have more time than we think

Or, put another way, we waste a huge amount of time by drifting through our days.

With a little intentionality, we can be hugely productive.

Perhaps you need to go to bed earlier or wake up earlier if we use the example of exercise once again. Getting up early can often feel like hard work, but being outside is revitalizing, or writing your book for 30 mins in the morning can be so empowering. You start to realize the potency of winning in the morning, getting that huge win accomplished will snowball into other wins throughout the day and you will feel amazing.

Having a foundational morning practice and a structure to our day allows us to increase our productivity by a huge margin. Not only that, breaking up our tasks and goals into power 30’s or 60’s (time blocking for 30 or 60 minutes) means you will get more done and the output will be higher quality.

5. Small efforts really do compound (titrating)

The prospect of writing a whole book can be daunting, especially if you do not write or journal that much right now.

But writing for 30 minutes a day? That doesn’t sound too bad at all. Most people whose goal is to write a book would probably be able to do that with little resistance. After 3 months of doing that daily, well, you’ve reached 45 hours of writing, which could be a short book done which sounded so daunting, right?

The same is true for exercise. The thought of doing daily movement can be overwhelming. Again, though, making the time to do something small each day yields tremendous achievements in a short space of time. Bite-sized chunks of power hours makes things so much easier and more achievable.

This demonstrates the power of consistency.

As you are starting this new year remember that YOU are in control of your choices. We can change our lives. And by winning each day, we can create  the life we can  imagine.

Here is to your best year yet! 

Britta