Create a Vision for your life. Ask yourself, what do you truly want across all areas of your life? What do you dream about? What are your values and what are the values you like most about the people around you? What is it that you always wanted to learn, to see, to go to, to have and to become? What holds you back from achieving these goals? Write it all down. It’s also important to analyse your beliefs and individual circumstances (you will quickly realize that it’s mostly fear and the lack of self confidence, that keep you from going after what you really want). That is the basis to create a project plan setting out your personal goals for this year. It’s also important to include ideas on how to re-work the thoughts, fears or circumstances that hold you back from achieving those objectives.

Divide your plan into months and weeks and reflect on it each and every month. You will be surprised how motivating it is to have a vision, a direction and something to look forward to each week.

Give yourself tasks and write those down, ticking them off when you’ve achieved them. I did that in the past years and I was thrilled to see how many of my goals (and more) I actually had secured by being persistent on working on them all week, all month and all year.

What’s extra important is to allow space for unexpected events and surprises that life so often brings up along the way. When you go through your life with a truly open mind, sometimes something even greater than you could have wished for comes along.

If your goals or visions change along the way – re-write them at any time but don’t give up on pursuing them.

Write a Journal

Keep a daily journal. Define three main tasks for each day and then stick to them. But also take a moment to write down every thought, idea, inspiration, goal, wish and dream that comes to your mind. By recording things on screen or on paper you relieve your mind, become better organized, reduce overthinking and drive down stress levels. All that leads to more productivity through keeping a heightened focus on the present situation. View the journal as your personal black box. Whenever you need inspiration or want to remind yourself of an idea, go back to this accessible store of your thoughts. It’s also human to lose track from time to time. However, just by keeping a journal, it will be easier for you to get back to your core values and vision. It’s a powerful reminder of who you are and what you want.