Setting Goals to Set Yourself Up for Success in the New Year

Hey hey,

Hope you had a great holiday weekend and fantastic end to your year!

Wow that’s wild to say, isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I still find it hard to believe that we’re less than two days away from a whole new year.

Feels like 2023 just flew by (queue Where’d All the Time Go by Dr. Dog).

With the end of the year upon us, it just felt right to make this one a bit different than the usual newsletters. But hopefully you’ll still get an insane amount of value like always and be well on your way to crush it in the new year.

So without further ado, here’s what we’ll be covering this week:

How to set goals to set yourself up for success in 2024.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

I’ll admit… I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions.

And not because I don’t like having a goal or a vision for the future. Trust me, I do.

It’s just that most of the time, New Year’s resolutions are so big and intimidating that you often have no idea how to conquer them. Let alone where to even start!

Guess there’s a reason why 80% - 95% of New Year’s resolutions fail 🤷🏼‍♂️

But not this year. Not yours. Not mine. Not ours.

You and I? We’re going to absolutely kill it in 2024. We’re going to make it the absolute best year of our lives.

And we’re going to start with what I like to call “Connor’s Killer New Year’s Gameplan.”

Here’s what we’re going to do ↓

Even though 2023 felt like it absolutely flew by… one year is still a very, very long time. A lot can happen in a year. And I’d be willing to be that a lot did happen in this past year.

Which is exactly where we’re going to start.

Take some time to reflect on literally everything that happened in 2023:

What did you accomplish? What were some major milestones? What obstacles did you face? What failures did you have? What challenges did you overcome? What went well? What didn’t go well? How could you have made the year even better?

Write it all down. Anything and everything. Journal it out and get everything out of your head.

Yes, it will take a bit of time. But yes, it’s a crucial step if you want to make 2024 the best year of your life.

Now, once you’ve reflected on this past year, it’s time to take everything you learned and bring them into the new year…

Taking everything you just wrote down and list out all your big, grand, incredible goals you have for the new year.

These will be like your New Year’s resolutions. They’re meant to be a bit broad and scare you a little bit.

“But Connor, I thought you said you’re never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions?”

I did… because this is where most people stop.

Everyone says things like “I want to lose 20 pounds. I want to get in shape. I want to travel. I want to quit my job and start my own business.”

And those things are all good and dandy. But if you want to accomplish them, you’re going to have to go much deeper…

Why do you want what you want?

It’s a simple question. But one you may not have thought about before.

Truth is, most people never get to the root cause of why they want certain things in life.

Why do you want to get in shape? Why do you want to quit your job and start a business? Why do you want to travel the world?

If you want to accomplish your goals and conquer the new year, you have to have a why.

It’ll act as your North Star. Your reason to continue going when things get tough and you want to quit.

So think about why you want to accomplish what you do.

Motivation comes and goes. But your why will always be with you.

Now that we have these huge goals and the reason why we want to accomplish those things, it’s time to break our goals down into smaller pieces.

And monthly sprints are a great place to start.

Why? Because they’re short enough that your huge goals won’t seem as overwhelming and intimidating if you break them into twelve smaller pieces. But they’re just long enough where you can actually attain them… without burning out.

Let’s take weight loss for example.

You want to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year. But man oh man that seems like a lot, doesn’t it? How overwhelming that is!

But if you break it down into monthly sprints, that means you just have to lose ~4 pounds each month. Which seems pretty doable, doesn’t it?

From there, you can break things down even further into weeks. You just have to lose 1 pound a week… that’s it!

You see why breaking your goals down into monthly sprints is so important?

Now, onto the final stage of “Connor Killer New Year’s Gameplan” (if you were wondering… yes, I’m going to trademark that soon, don’t even worry).

You know what they say, right? A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Now that we’ve got our what and our why, all that’s left to do is figure out our how!

Like seriously… how in the world are we going to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year? How are we going to quit our job and start that business we’ve always dreamed about? How are we going to become a digital nomad so we can travel to as many different places as possible in the next 365 days?

Well, by breaking everything down into weekly and daily tasks.

Next thing we have to do is write down literally everything we need to do to accomplish each of our goals.

Let’s take starting a business for example. You’ll need to learn a skill, create an irresistible offer, do outreach, sign clients, do the actual client work… there’s a lot that goes into it.

If you’re looking to start or grow your online coaching, consulting or freelance business and go from $0 to $1,000 in the next 30 days, I just opened up spots to the Road to Greatness coaching program. You’ll learn everything you need to know to make your first $1K and beyond online. Click here to learn more and grab your 14-day free trial.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, starting a business can be very scary and intimidating.

Which is why we’ll break everything down into smaller tasks and goals.

By doing this, you’ll know the exact needle-moving tasks you need to accomplish every single day to achieve your bigger monthly goals.

Let’s look at signing your first client. What are the most important tasks you need to be doing every day if you want to sign your first client?

Identifying 20 people every day that you could reach out to. Send an email or DM message to those 20 people offering your service. Follow up with the people who didn’t respond. Rinse and repeat.

Remember, you can only control so much. You can’t control the social media algorithm. You can’t really control who replies to you. And you sure as heck can’t force someone to pay you thousands of dollars.

But you can control your inputs. How many messages you send. How many times you follow up. How many pieces of content you publish to draw attention to your business.

You see? Signing your first client or losing a ton of weight might seem intimidating and overwhelming at first.

But when you break it down into smaller, more attainable tasks each day, so you know exactly what you need to do to get there?

I guarantee 2024 will be the best year of your life as long as you remain focused, disciplined, and consistent.

Here’s to a new year. Let’s crush it 💪🏼

Annndddd… there you have it! How you can set specific goals to crush it in 2024 and make it the best year of your life.

I kinda already gave you this week’s action steps above. But here’s a quick recap:

As always, let me know if you have any questions or need any help!

And if you want a personalized blueprint you can follow to reach your content and business goals in the new year, click here.

See ya next year ;)

Connor “break it down now” Flynn

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

Helen Keller | American Author and Disability Rights Activist