How to Turn Your Year Around

If I had to guess, I'd say the first half of 2020 didn't go exactly as you planned.

Between the Coronavirus pandemic and social uprising in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, this year is certainly one for the history books.

While 2020 brought so much fear, anxiety, heartbreak, stress, overwhelm, loss, uncertainty, pain, and outrage, it also brought us "closer" to family and friends through virtual dinners, coffee chats, and happy hours.

For some of us, it brought life and jobs to a halt to allow us to focus on what's most important to us. For those on the front lines, it brought your purpose to light - serving the world in a way you never dreamed imaginable.

2020 is a collective awakening - some of us are waking up to our role in white supremacy. Some of us are waking up to a career that no longer aligns with what we want. Some of us are waking up to the start of healing generations of trauma. Some of us are waking up to realize the lifestyle we're living is no longer sustainable.

We're all waking up to something. And awakening brings profound change.

As we enter the second half of this unusual year, we have an opportunity to change. To start over. To remember what's important to us. To heal. To speak up. To challenge the status quo. To put ourselves first. To do better.

This halfway point reminds me of my year-in-review process, where at the end of each year, I look back on my accomplishments, mistakes, lessons learned, and reflect on those important moments.

I think about what I want more of in the next year, and what I'm ready to leave behind.

You can use this same Year in Review process to make significant changes in your own life and career and create more happiness, success, and alignment.

Here’s how to turn your year around:

1. List your biggest accomplishments

Think about the things you’re most proud of. What did you achieve? When were you most successful?

There are two ways to do this. In one version, you can go through the decades of your life (between ages 0-10, 11-20, etc.), and write down all of your accomplishments from each time period, big or small. This way, you have a clear picture of patterns or themes in your accomplishments, and you can see how achievements built on each other to get you to where you are today.

The second version is to make a list of accomplishments from the first half of the year. We tend to think that accomplishment has to be something big and something amazing that we did, but an accomplishment can be something small. It could be “I made it through the day.” No judgement, it’s whatever YOU think an accomplishment is, no matter how small. When you start to write these things down, you can categorize and notice the things that you’re doing well over time, giving yourself evidence of your success.

2. Identify any lessons learned

Just like listing our accomplishments can teach us a lot about ourselves, identifying our mistakes helps to pave the way for our success. Mistakes like sending an email to the wrong person, making an error in a report, forgetting to include someone in a meeting, saying the wrong thing out of hurt or anger, while painful, help us grow and develop as leaders.

Think about the mistakes that helped you grow. Make a list of mistakes and missteps you encountered this year. What lessons did you learn from those experiences? How did making those mistakes help you learn more about yourself?

Learning doesn’t have to start from mistakes or stop in the classroom. Even if you don’t have access to traditional learning environments, you can take learning into your own hands.

Think about the small ways you’ve grown and developed each day, whether that’s learning from mistakes and failures, cultivating a gratitude practice, reading personal development books, or teaching yourself a new skill. How did these learning opportunities shape your life?

3. Consider what you want to leave behind

There are some things in your life that no longer serve you. In a lighthearted sense, you can think of these things like old pairs of jeans that are out of style or don’t fit you. For some reason, we keep these mementos around because we’re afraid that getting rid of them is like getting rid of a piece of ourselves. Or that one day, we’ll need them again.

Our thoughts can be like this, too. Over the years, we’ve built up different thought patterns that our brain uses to keep us safe and in our comfort zones.

Our brains will tell us things like, “you can’t do that,” or “that’s too hard,” or “what if you fail?”

And we keep these thoughts around because they’re safe. We’re safe. We’re safe if we don’t try something new because we avoid the risk of failure or humiliation. We’re safe if we stay in a soul-sucking job because we avoid the risk of disappointment of not getting our dream job.

Thoughts like these only keep you safe to a point.

You won’t grow inside your comfort zone. Life is about taking (smart) risks, trying new things, learning from mistakes and failure, and going after our goals and dreams.

What thoughts are keeping you in your comfort zone? What habits would you like to break? Think about the things that you’d need to leave behind to turn your life around.

Then tell those thoughts, “thank you, but you can’t come with me any more.”

4. Get clear on your values and purpose

When you’re connected to something meaningful, something bigger than yourself, you can use that connection to turn your year around. Identifying your core values and finding your life purpose are two ways you can get clear on what really matters to you. And when you’re clear on your purpose and how you’re meant to serve the world, you can align your career or job to your strengths, skills, and expertise. When you’re in a role where you use your strengths and expertise on a daily basis, you start to build confidence in yourself and clarity around what’s most important to you. If you need somewhere to start, click here to join the 30-Day Life Purpose Challenge.

5. Set an intention

An intention is a guiding principle for how you want to be, live, and show up in the world. It’s not the same as a goal, which typically has an endpoint or an expectation of success.

An intention is a path you aim to align to. It guides our thoughts, actions, and attitudes.

If you consider that your life purpose is who you are at your core, then an intention can help you discover who you’re meant to be, and how you’re meant to show up in the world.

Intentions are heart-centered, emotionally-charged beliefs that guide our actions. Setting intentions helps to bring our beliefs, emotions, and actions into alignment.

Setting an intention is the first step in embodying who you want to be. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “You don’t attract what you want. You attract what you are.”

One way I love to do this is to determine my Word of the Year. You can also use this method to define a word for the second half of your year.

Your Word of the Year helps to inform your goals, set healthy boundaries, and center your mind around what matters most.

Some of my Words of the Year have been: Abundance, Peace, Freedom, Growth, Clarity, and Purpose.

Start by brainstorming positive, uplifting, encouraging words that motivate you, center you, or give you a sense of determination or pride.

Narrow your list of words down until you can identify a single word that represents how you want to be, feel or act for the rest of the year.

The Takeaway

It’s never too late to turn your year around. With some intentional goal-setting, aligned action, and determination, you can make the rest of the year the best of your year.

Take action now: Download the free Year in Review Workbook to get clear on what you want from the rest of your year.

If one of your goals is to find your life purpose, you can also join the free 30-Day Life Purpose Challenge to discover your reason for being. With daily journal prompts, thought-provoking exercises, and an uplifting online community, this challenge will support you in finding more meaning and fulfillment in your career and life.