Let’s Get Started with Your Best Year Ever

By Leo Babauta

Happy New Year my friends!

I had an amazing 2017 with all of you, and I’m incredibly grateful to be working with you. Thank you for being in my program.

Let’s talk about making 2018 your best year ever.

You might have read my New Year’s post today on Zen Habits … but even if you didn’t, I’d like to go over the main points in this email …

Pick Your Focuses for 2018

What do you want this year to be? What do you want to learn? How do you want to grow? What do you want to focus on?

For me, I’ve picked a handful of focuses:

  1. Meditation/mindfulness
  2. Healthy eating
  3. Fitness
  4. My mission (work focus)
  5. Deepening personal relationships
  6. Practicing yoga

Your list will look different, of course. Take a minute now to write down your 4-6 focuses for 2018 and share them here on the forum.

Create Your Rituals

Now to make those things actually happen, you have to create a daily ritual for each one.

A ritual is a practice that you hold to be special, not to be taken lightly, that you set apart from the rest of your day. It’s something you surrender yourself to, not allowing yourself to reject the parts of it you don’t like, but just giving in to the experience fully.

My rituals for this year, to support my 2018 focuses:

  1. Morning meditation
  2. A Focus Session (to work on my mission) in the morning
  3. Cook a healthy meal (to be eaten at breakfast & dinner)
  4. Afternoon workout or run
  5. Evening yoga
  6. Formally close my eating period for the day at 7pm (meaning I won’t snack after that)

Now pick just two of those to focus on this month. Then two next month. Then another two the month after.

Now Let’s Set Up Your Structure

To ensure that you stick to the rituals, we’re going to help you set up some structure.

Today, please do the following:

  1. Make a list of your 4-6 focuses for 2018 and share them here on the forum.
  2. Pick two of those and create a ritual for each, to focus on in January.
  3. Write them down, on paper, along with the time and place you’re going to do them each day.
  4. Set up reminders: one digital (phone/calendar) and a note in the physical space where you’ll see it each day.
  5. Pick an accountability option: the new Sea Change Facebook group, a habit-focused team, or find a one-on-one partner.
  6. Commit to your new accountability team to check in once a week (or daily if you like).

If you set up this structure, you will be very likely to stick to your rituals.

Create a new ritual or two every month, and do the Sea Change course designed to go with it.

This is how you’ll have your best year ever!