Coming back from a long break seems to cause a lot of angst for a lot of people. Whether it’s a new year, a long weekend or coming back from vacation, sometimes it can take a bit to get going again. Here are a few strategies that I have found useful to explode into the new year or coming back from a break.
1. Treat holidays and weekends like layovers.
If you are going to take time off, which I don’t advise, treat your return like a continuation of your journey rather than starting over. For instance, I don’t treat New Year's like a new year, I treat it like a continuation of my trip to success. The fact that one thing ended and another began, enforced by some calendar or event, means nothing to those most committed to success.
Related: 10 Ways to Crush It in 2015
Avoid spending time on a moment and keep your attention on the final destination: your success. Events such as Christmas, New Year's, weekends and summer breaks just distract the masses from their end goal. This causes people to always be starting over rather than continuing.
2. Focus all attention on the future.
Last year is over, no matter what kind of year it was. If it was a great year, you will try to repeat it. If it was a good year, you are probably trying to figure out how to beat it. And if it was a terrible year, you are wondering how to avoid it.
Someone once told me, “The neurotic lives in the past, those that settle live in the moment, and the genius lives in the future!”
Whether you had a good year, bad year or a great one, they all have one thing in common -- they are over. Now is the time to move all your attention and efforts to the future rather than celebrating or regretting the past. The super successful learn to stay in the future, constantly outdoing past failures and successes.
3. Set ridiculous targets.
The biggest trick I have learned in my career is to 10 times all my targets. This past year I experienced the biggest income year I ever had. Rather than trying to repeat, I sat down with my staff and shared with them the new goal was to 10 times last year. This is completely ridiculous and one of the most liberating success tricks I have discovered in my career.
Let’s say you achieved your best year ever last year and made $80,000. This year's target would be to get to $800,000. Ridiculous, yes, and probably unattainable, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth using to build your year around. Consider that what you achieved last year is unreal for someone else on this planet, and was probably unreal to you at some time in your life.