If you are like me, you like to set New Year’s resolutions or goals. My goal year is actually not with the calendar year.

I got a system I started, and I start at the end of March. And so, I go from April to the end of March, now, in my goal year. But regardless of when your goal year is, if you’re like most people, right now, as I record this, it’s the last week of the year in 2020. So, a lot of people are busy evaluating their past year and looking forward to their coming year. And that’s a fantastic thing to do. Unfortunately, the reality is a lot of times we get to week three, four, maybe five into the new year, and our resolve, as we call them, resolutions, has kind of gone away. And unless we’re really committed, we’re not doing it anymore.

I remember one year, we have this family newsletter and my mom wrote in her letter, and it was a January month for the letter. And she says, “I took out my New Year’s resolutions from last year and they looked perfectly good for this year, so I’ll just use those ones again.” And while humorous, the reason it’s humorous is because that’s really true for a lot of us.

Well, what’s something you can do to actually turn your New Year’s resolutions or your goals into a reality? Here’s one thing that I want to give you as a suggestion, something to consider. In fact, as I stand here doing this, I’m in my office, which is now in a downstairs room in our house. There’s a reason I moved it downstairs, because upstairs, I had more distractions. I had the window that faced the street. I’d have traffic going by. Occasionally, when school would come out, the kids walked by, and it was a distraction that caused me to be less productive than I otherwise would be. Down here, I’ve got the back yard outside this window. I don’t have the street traffic noise or distractions or whatever else, and I’m a little bit more secluded in the house.

The clue with that is our environment has a big impact on our ability to produce. So, here’s the recommendation for you. Take that list of goals, your New Year’s resolutions that you’ve got that you’re working on, and look at it and say, “Okay, what about my environment is getting in my way for me to get this goal? And what about my environment is helping me achieve this goal?” And then look at how you can change your environment to actually stack the cards in your favor so that you are more likely to achieve your goal.

There’s different books that I’ve read about that have made reference to that, but the one that is most relevant to that specific principle is this one, called Willpower Doesn’t Work, by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. So, if you want more information about that, I recommend that book to you.

But look at your environment. What is it that’s detracting you? You got a lot of distractions? Do you need to clean out the clutter so you can focus on the work? Do you need to set up a specific room in your house to go work on that specific object or that specific purpose? Your work room or maybe your office where you work for your employment has a lot of distractions about it. Maybe you need to limit the distractions and put the things in order so that you can focus on your work and be more productive.

Hopefully, that helps a little bit with you. If one of your objectives or your goals has to do with better money management, then reach out to me, and let’s talk about your specific situation, because another thing you can do to have success is get coaches, and I’d love to talk to you about your situation.