How To Finally Achieve Your Goals In 2020

The world ends on Mondays.

Ding Buzz Beep

These are the sounds I hear when turning on my phone every Monday morning.

The work week has started, and so have my clients’ emotions.

New voicemails, new emails, and new texts from half my clients (and a few friends) all saying some version of the same thing:

“Do you have a little time to talk today?”

This has been going on so long that I’ve noticed an undeniable pattern: People freak out on Mondays!

Not just Mondays, though. Holidays too.

The first three Mondays in the month of December?

Panic and terror.

Monday has its opposite, however…Friday.

On Friday, everyone is happy. The weekend is coming up; they might’ve just gotten paid; and the pressure of the week has come off.

Here’s what’s strange about this:

When I would call back my clients on Monday, they would talk about what was bothering them as if the world was ending.

There was endless anxiety and stress that could not seem to be tamed.

It was all kinds of worries too. Business problems, relationship problems, health issues.

No matter what I tried to help calm them down, it always just seemed harder on a Monday. Sometimes I felt helpless.

Later in the week, I’d follow up on Thursday or Friday. I’d ask them about the BIG problem that they were dealing with from Monday. Here’s what they’d often tell me in a calm voice:

“Oh that. I’m not worried about it anymore. It was no problem.”

What?! Then why were you leaving me a panicked voicemail at 6am on Monday?

So I did the only thing that made sense:

I shifted my work week. I stopped taking clients on Monday. And I did my best to schedule more calls for Thursday and Friday.

What a difference.

Most of the challenge in my week disappeared. The “difficult” calls were replaced with easy, clear-thinking calls.

It made my job easier AND it made my clients happier. Their good moods translated to seeing me in a more positive light.

And that is the key to finally achieving your New Year’s resolutions: not taking yourself out of the game.

Let me explain.

New Year’s resolutions are mostly a joke. We set them every year with good intentions, but who follows through?

Have you ever met someone in great shape, and asked them about it, and they responded, “Well, I was at a New Year’s Eve cocktail party and decided that I was going to lose 50 pounds and get into the best shape of my life. So I did it.”

We know resolutions rarely work. Yet, we’re always so hopeful that next year will be the one that sticks.

My question is, Why?

Why do we always fail at resolutions?

They seem so simple. We know what we need to do, but we don’t do it.

Success is usually an obvious and short road; we just can’t get ourselves to follow that road.

Want to get in great shape? One to three months of hard work in the gym will get you there.

Hate your boss and want a new job? One month of daily reaching out to your network and looking for work will get you there.

Want more money? Every day for a month, get in front of your biggest-opportunity clients and sell your services.

Nothing breakthrough here. This is obvious.

We know what we need to do; we just can’t get ourselves to do it. And the cycle of setting and forgetting New Year’s resolutions continues.

What stops us?

Don’t take yourself out of the game.

Setting a goal is a moment of excitement. We ride that wave for a few days, but we inevitably crash.

At some point, our motivation for our goal will wane. We’ll have a down day. We’ll have a day when we don’t want to go to the gym, or make phone calls, or write 😉.

In essence, we’ll have a “Monday.”

But don’t take yourself out of the game: Don’t buy into the thoughts that your problem is personal, or that you’ve had a setback, or that you no longer care for what you want.

No matter what your resolution is, one thing is guaranteed:

Our emotions live on a roller coaster.

Your feelings will go up and down. Maybe just because of the day of the week.

But don’t blame your circumstances. Don’t blame the “problem.” Blame human nature itself.

Relax. Wait for the fear, lack of motivation, or end-of-the-world feelings to fade. It won’t last forever. It will pass. Friday will be here soon.

And when it does, pick right back up from where you were and finish what you started.