101 Hacks for a Happy New Year

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” — Lao Tzu
Make this your greatest year.
Ever.
BEST EASY WAYS TO MAKE MONEY OLINE FREE 2020/2021

Whether you think of it as a refresh, a reset, or a total transformation, it’s time for a fresh start.

Hack a Happy New Year!

Carry the good forward, let the rest go, and change whatever isn’t working.
Here is a powerful collection of high-value hacks right at your finger tips to help you create your best year ever.
Pick and choose the hacks you need the most.
Share your favorite hacks with a friend to help them get ahead this year.

1. Get the power of a New Year’s Resolution on your side

Let’s start the new year off right with a hack that might change how you look at New Year’s Resolutions …
Make a New Year’s resolution to increase your chance of success.
That’s right. New Year’s Resolutions can actually work.
According to Dr. John C. Norcross:
“Contrary to widespread public opinion, a considerable proportion of New Year resolvers do succeed.
You are 10 times more likely to change by making a New Year’s resolution compared to non-resolvers with the identical goals and comparable motivation to change.”
See A New Approach for New Year’s Resolutions

2. Limit yourself to one big resolution at a time

This is a hack to help you New Year’s Resolution actually work.
Focus is your friend.
It takes a lot of willpower to make a significant change.
Focus on one big change so that you can prepare for it, manage it, and monitor it.
You can do great things when you focus your time, energy, and resources around your one big worthwhile change.
Your emotions are a great source of input to help you know what you need to focus on, if you listen to them.
What’s keeping you up at night?
If nothing were to change in your life, what’s one attribute or quality that you need to fully enjoy it?
Work on that.

3. Get specific with your goals

Make your New Year’s Resolution specific.
Keep it clear, compelling, and concise.
Turn a vague intention like “get in shape” or “lose weight” or “eat better” into something more specific. For example, you might set a goal to lose a pound a week.
By getting specific, you have something to aim for.

4. Dream bigger to realize your potential

This is a hack to remind you to dream big again.
You don’t just think a dream.
You feel it in your bones and in your heart.
Dreams breathe life into everything we do.
You can use your dreams to inspire yourself, to shape your life, and to do what makes you come alive.
Dreams help us realize our potential and to tap into our greatest resources within us, and around us.
Our dreams act as a compass and help us choose a path, among our many options.
Dreams shape our choices that shape our way forward.
See The Power of Dreams
See How To Test Your Dream
See Are You Living Your Dreams?

5. If you want change, you must change

When you change, your world changes.
There is a great little video that reminds us of one of the greatest lessons in life:
Video: Nothing Will Change Unless YOU Change
Here is my favorite part from the video:
“One of the great lessons in life is that nothing will change unless YOU change.
Nothing will get better, unless you get better.
It’s not about circumstance. It’s not about “luck.” We all get the good and the bad. We all get the challenging events that arrive in our life.
That’s a normal part of being human.
I’m talking about what you CHOOSE to do with those circumstances.
If you are waiting for the economy to change, if you are waiting for your paycheck to change, waiting for your relationship to change, waiting for something to change …
Nothing will change
If you want change, YOU must change.”

6. Guide your path with vision, values, and goals

This is a hack to help you get out of bed each morning.
Your mission is your map.
When you don’t even have a model, a map, or a path, then it’s hard to make meaning and even harder to balance work and life, because you have no gauges – it’s like flying blind.
With your mission as your map, your vision as the destination, and your values as your guide, you instantly have a way to center yourself and lead your life from the inside out.
Mission Statement – Your missions answers the question, “What’s the purpose?” or “What’s the job” or “Who are you?” or “What are you about?” Ideally, you have a differentiator.
Vision statement – Now that you know the purpose, the vision answers, “Where do you want to go?”
Values – Values help you prioritize and shape your actions. They answer the “Why.” They are what you care about. The more your work matches your values, the more enjoyment you will find.
Goals – Goals answer the question, “What do you want to accomplish?” A good away to make goals useful is to make them SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based.
See Guide Your Path with Vision, Values, and Goals

7. Change a habit with Habit Stacking

If you want lasting change, hack your habits.
Habits are powerful stuff.
As Mahatma Ghandi said:
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
But how do you actually change a habit?
If you’ve tried in the past, but failed, it’s time to try some new tools.
One powerful tool for changing habits is what S.J. Scott calls Habit Stacking.
Habit stacking is simply linking or chaining actions together to create a routine.
Within this one routine, you stack or link multiple mini-habits.
S.J. Scott provides us with an example of his Habit Stacking morning routine:

Get out of bed and make it. (Reason: I work from home, so having an orderly environment helps me stay productive.)
Walk into my bathroom and weigh myself. (Reason: I run marathons and need to maintain a specific weight to have a good performance. Having a daily ‘weigh-in’ keeps me focused on my running goals.)
Wash my face with hot water and a facial cleanser. (Reason: Studies have shown that washing your face helps you feel awake and energized in the morning.)
Walk into the kitchen and pour a 16-ounce glass of ice-cold water with lemon. (Reason: Lemon is another way to feel awake–plus, I instantly get two of the eight servings of water that I need every day.)
Take daily vitamins. (Reason: Most diets are nutrient-deficient. Following a regular vitamin regimine introduces what I’m missing in my diet.)
Make a power smoothie. I mix up different recipes, but I like to make ones that include proteins, potassium and antioxidants. (Reason: This simple shake is another way to create energy for the rest of the day.)
Text my girlfriend with a loving message. (Reason: The key to a successful relationship is to do the ‘little things’ on a daily basis.)
Update my mobile phone app with the habits I’m currently developing (Reason: Tracking habits on a daily basis is the best way to make a permanent change.)

See The Power of Habit Stacking
See 8 Steps for Building a Habit Stacking Routine
See 10 Keys to Changing a Habit
See How To Change a Habit and Make It Stick
See 50 Repetitions to Make a Habit Stick

8. Create mini-feedback loops

Hack away at your feedback loops for actionable insight.
Feedback is your friend.
If you don’t create a feedback loop, you’ll lose momentum when you don’t know whether you are making any progress.
You also need feedback so you can adjust whatever isn’t working for you.
Smaller, tighter feedback loops can work better at helping you make decisions during your day. For example, according to John Tierney, research shows that daily weigh-ins work better than weekly weigh-ins.
See Use Qualitative Feedback to Improve Your Performance
See Feedback: The Ultimate Key to High Performance
See Motivation, Skills, and Feedback

9. Bounce back from a setback

Hack away at your resilience.
As Vince Lombardi said, “It isn’t whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.”
You will face setbacks.
Expect them.
When they happen, get back up and try again.
See Bounce Back with Skill

10. Avoid “All or Nothing” thinking

“All or Nothing” thinking is when you give up because you didn’t do it all, or not everything went the way you expected.
Rather than give up, remind yourself that something is better than nothing.
Maybe you can only do part of your workout. Go for it.
Maybe you messed up on breakfast. Try to eat better for lunch and dinner.
If there is one hack that will help more people achieve their goals, even if it takes longer, or it’s not all of their goal, it’s this one.
See 10 Distorted Thinking Patterns
See You Can Have It All All

11. Choose progress over perfection

This hack is for all of the perfectionists out there.
When you focus on making progress, and you give up the need to be perfect, you free yourself up to find creative ways to reach your goal.
You also take off pressure that doesn’t help.
When you try to be perfect, you will just lie to yourself or to other people, while trying to live up to a fantasy.
Instead, get real and enjoy learning how to make progress on your goal.
Ask the tough questions, that help you move forward:

What did you learn that you can use for next time?
What’s the next step to make a little progress now?
What can you focus on that will help you move forward?

See Stop Keeping Score, Learn Instead
See Growth Mindset Over Fixed Mindset

12. Reward yourself more often

Create mini-rewards.
Rather than wait until the very end, find a way to reward yourself along the way.
That’s the power of positive reinforcement.
When Tony Robbins was writing his book, rather than celebrate when he was all done, he decided he would take a dip in his hot tub each time he finished a chapter.
It was a little reward, but it went a long way to helping him write his book in record time.
See Reward Yourself in the Moment

13. Gamify it

The secret to a great hack is to add the fun factor.
Find a way to make it fun.
Add the fun factor to your New Year’s resolution.
For example, when I dropped 30 pounds in one month, I made it a game to lose a pound a day.
This made it more fun for me, it gave me a mini-goal to focus on, within the bigger goal of losing 30 pounds for the month.
This also helped me quickly adjust my approach for the day, if it wasn’t working. For example, do I need to eat more, eat less, change what I eat, work out more, work out less, or change my workout routine.
I gave myself the freedom to experiment and try to win each day.
See What Does Game Design Teach Us About Fun?
See Go For the Epic Win
See The Gamification of Education

14. Adopt a Tiny Habit

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Will Durant
According to BJ Fogg, a Tiny Habit is when you do something very, very small.
Here are some examples:

floss 1 tooth
do two push ups
drink one sip of water

But there’s one more tiny piece. After you do the tiny behavior that you want to repeat, or expand in the future, you immediately celebrate victory.
Fogg shares an example of how he now does 50, 60, 70 push ups a day.
He decided that after he takes a pee, he will do 2 push ups, and then say, “I’m awesome.”
2 push ups turned into 5, and then 8, and for extra credit he sometimes does 12. Over the course of a day, this adds up.
See The Power of Tiny Habits

15. Just Start

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
Sometimes the best way to get started is to just start.
Don’t wait until the moon is full or the stars or aligned or you’ve figured everything all out.
Instead, just get started and figure out things as you go.
As long as you focus on learning, improving, and making progress, you can keep moving forward, and sometimes that is the best strategy to actually achieve your goal.
See Starting is the Hardest Part

16. Adopt a growth mindset

“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
Hack your mind for better results.
When you adopt a growth mindset, you open up a world of possibilities for your personal development.
You break the limiting beliefs that a fixed mindset creates.
With a fixed mindset, you believe your basic qualities, like your intelligence or talent are simply fixed traits.
In other words, you can’t change them.
With a growth mindset, you believe that you can change, develop, and improve your abilities.
Rather than worry about whether you were born a great athlete or a great writer or a great genius, you decide you can learn whatever you put your mind to.
See Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset

17. Create if-then plans to stick with your goals

This is another hack to help you stick with your goals and your New Year’s resolutions.
Decide ahead of time how you will handle challenges that come up:
If this happen, then I’ll do XYZ.
The key to making this work is to focus on positive statements.
Rather than this negative statement:
If someone brings cupcakes, then I won’t have one.
Create a more positive statement you can act on:
If someone brings cupcakes then I’ll treat myself to hummus and crackers.
See Create If-Then Plans to Stick with Your Goals

18. Start with Great Expectations

This is a New Year’s resolution hack inspired by Tony Robbins.
Don’t start by expecting failure.
Expect great things to happen.
If you don’t expect great things, then great things are never going to happen.
Not because of fate, or destiny or because you are doomed to failure, but because you will limit yourself.
You won’t try very hard if you start off by thinking you will fail.
If you think you will fail, you won’t tap your most resourceful self. You won’t motivate yourself. You won’t inspire your creative genius.
Remind yourself that you get what you expect.
See Your Potential Starts with Your Beliefs

19. Adopt 7 beliefs for personal excellence

Great results are the by-product of great actions, and great actions are the by-product of great beliefs.
What are some great beliefs to adopt?
According to Tony Robbins, here are 7 beliefs for personal excellence:

Everything happens for a reason and a purpose, and it serves us.
There is no such thing as failure.
Whatever happens, take responsibility.
It’s not necessary to understand everything to be able to use everything.
People are your greatest resource.
Work is play.
There’s no abiding success without commitment.

See 7 Beliefs for Personal Excellence
See Where Do Beliefs Come From?

20. Master the art of goal planning

Setting goals is easy.
Achieving them is not.
It takes planning.
You can master the art of goal planning by asking yourself 5 questions:

What is the specific work or effort required to achieve your goal?
What resources or dependencies do you need to help you succeed?
What is your action plan to achieve this goal?
What time investment is actually required? What should your weekly schedule look like to support achieving this goal? (Can you be a world-class violinist if you practice 5 minutes a day?)
What obstacles will you face and how will you respond?

See Goal Setting vs. Goal Planning

21. Prime your mind for greatness

This is a hack you can use everyday to light your fire.
Use priming to set the stage for your success.
In practice, you can just think of priming as to make ready or to prepare.
You might hear people say “prime the pump” to mean encourage the growth or action of something.
Or you might see an athlete who is primed and ready for action.
Whether priming works because of mirroring and our innate tendency to imitate, or our reticular activating system (RAS), or our subconscious mind, or whatever, what’s important is that you can prime yourself for better results.
You can create new frames of reference to draw from.
You can fill your mind with hope, aspirations and bold ambitions to crowd out fear, failures, and regrets.
One way to prime your mind is to ask 3 questions:

What do you want?
Why do you want it?
What do you need to learn or what quality do you need to build to achieve it?

Yes, it sounds simple, but we get resourceful when we ask the right questions.
Ask these three questions to start priming your mind to figure out what do you want for this year.
If you know WHY you want it, and your WHY is strong, this will keep you going through the tough stuff.
When it comes to the HOW, you first need to identify what you need to learn so that you can find the right strategies.
If you turn reaching your goals into a learning journey, you win along the way, and avoid putting your success “out there” or far off in the distance.
That’s just one example of priming. You can also prime your mind by reading great books, learning about great people, reading great quotes, and learning about stories of personal transformation.
See Prime Your Mind for Greatness

22. Use dreams, goals, and habits to pull you forward

This is a hack to help you put it all together as you turn your dreams into action.
A good way to think about dreams, goals, habits, and inspired action is “better together.”
The dream is the vision that inspires you.
It needs to reflect your passion and your purpose, and it needs to be actionable and believable.
You can have a dream for your career, a dream for your health, a dream for your relationships, etc.
Once you have a dream that you believe in and that can inspires you and pulls you forward, you can chunk it down into goals.
The goals are simply your meaningful milestones, or the stepping stones or the mile markers on your journey.
Goals are a way to see and feel your progress, and to funnel your focus along the way.
And, of course, when you have a meaningful dream, you can add habits that help support you.
After all, trying to achieve a goal, where there are no habits supporting you, is a setup for failure.
And, having habits without any goals or any dreams to inspire or pull you forward, may get lost along the road to good intentions.
See Dreams, Goals, and Habits

23. Use the Exponential Results Formula to make a big change

This is a powerful hack for making leaps and bounds in your life.
The Exponential Results Formula is a method for rapid results.
The beauty of The Exponential Results Formula is that you can enjoy both the journey and the destination toward achieving your success.
If you have a trusted system, then you can explore and experiment with speed and skill in a more reliable way.
You can learn at a faster pace.
You can enjoy a higher level of success.
You can reduce the pain along the way.
You also learn how to more effectively avoid the dead ends and fruitless paths.
Here is a summary of the Exponential Results Formula:

Step 1. Envision the Future Capability
Step 2. Map Out the Goals
Step 3. Model the Best
Step 4. Map Out the Possible Paths
Step 5. Identify Your Tests for Success
Step 6. Test Your Results
Step 7. Change Your Approach Based on Feedback

See The Exponential Results Formula

24. Adopt the 7 Habits of Highly Motivated People

Hack your motivation so that you have the juice to keep going and to face your challenges.
You can think of motivation as a driving force, stimulus, or influence, or as an internal or external desire to achieve a goal.
According to Wikipedia, motivation is “these inner conditions such as wishes, desires, goals, activate us to move in a particular direction in behavior.”
My favorite definition of inspire is “to breathe life into.”
So, effective motivation is the ability to continuously breathe life into whatever you do.
Here’s my take on the 7 habits of highly motivated people:

Find Your WHY
Change Your Beliefs About What’s Possible
Change Your Beliefs That Limit You
Spend More Time In Your Values
Surround Yourself With Catalysts
Build Better Feedback Loops
“Pull” Yourself with Compelling Goals

The sum of the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
By stacking these habits, you compound your ability to create your own motivation to help you jump out of bed in the morning, ready to dominate your day.
See 7 Habits of Highly Motivated People
See Master Motivation: The Keys to Motivating Yourself and Finding Your Drive

25. Use Trigger Moments to activate your higher self

This is a hack to help you stay on track every day so you move closer to your goals and bold ambitions.
Sometimes, all we need is just a gentle reminder.
In psychology and NLP there’s the idea of a trigger or stimulus. Brendon Burchard calls them your trigger moments.
The idea here is when you trigger happens, choose a better response.
You can use trigger moments to add or reinforce habits, build better routines, change how you show up, and to energize yourself throughout the day.
Here is how to setup and use Trigger Moments:

Set Up Triggers Throughout Your Day. You can setup alarms to trigger you to do the things you need to do. For example, you can set an alarm on your phone or on your computer to go off at a certain time. It’s like a little angel in your ear reminding you of who you want to be. Other triggers might be when you wake up in the morning, or when you walk through your door, or when you open the refrigerator.
Practice Your New Behavior. When your trigger happens, use the reminder to choose your new behavior. Practice the response that you want to get better at.

When your trigger moment goes off, perform your action.
Each trigger moment is another chance to practice or to choose a better response.
Let’s say you want to add a workout routine to your life. Set a trigger that when you wake up in the morning, you drink water, put exercise shoes on, go downstairs, or go you go to the gym.
That’s the trigger.
When you wake up in the morning, nothing interrupts that action. You don’t start something else, you run your routine.
See How To Use Trigger Moments to Activate Your Higher Self

26. Use Door Frame Triggers to inspire a better version of you

This hack can help you be the person you really want to be.
You can use a trigger to remind yourself of a new habit or a new way to show up in the world.
One of Brendon’s favorite triggers is walking into a new room.
When you walk into a new room, you can associate a trigger with that door frame.
When Brendon walks through his front door, he repeats three words to himself:

Caring
Inspiring
Engaged

Those three words reflect how he wants to show up. When he walks through the door, his mind automatically triggers those three words.
What words do you love to describe you?
Have those three words and set those up in your life.
Each time your pass through a door frame, remind yourself of those three words that you want to demonstrate more in your life.
See How To Use Trigger Moments to Activate Your Higher Self

27. Find your purpose

This is a hack that will help you face your Mondays with a smile and get up on the right side of the bed in the morning.
When you know your purpose, you make more impact.
Your purpose also keeps you grounded among the chaos.
It’s your North Star. It guides you. It helps you adjust your sails to the winds. It gives you the strength to fight your good fights.
When you fall off your path, it helps you get back on the saddle again.
Perhaps, most importantly, your purpose helps you find your drive when you need it most.
I’m a fan of one-liner purpose statements.
It keep them simple and sticky so you don’t have to look them up. For example, Google’s is “Organize the world’s information.” Starbuck’s is “World’s best coffee.” Apple’s purpose for ITunes is “World’s best online music store.” Microsoft’s is “Help people and businesses realize their full potential.”
They’re aspirational and they inspire.
More importantly, they are easy to say, which means they are easy to use.
To find your purpose, keep it simple:

101 Hacks for a Happy New Year 2020