The end of the year is fast approaching, as is the start of a new one. With that, now is the perfect time to review your goals, record your learning, and use any insights to help you accomplish more next year.

For the last few years I’ve spent a few days in December thinking about what goals I want to achieve the following year. It's become a bit of an obsession which I get genuinely excited about.

In this article I’ll walk you through a step-by-step approach that’ll give you an opportunity to consider what you've achieved and learned this year, and then apply your learning to the coming year.

The approach consists of five steps:

1. Identify your top achievements
2. Consider your overall commitment to your goals
3. Identify the habits that supported your goals
4. Assess the impact of your habits and behaviours
5. Identify where to focus your energy next year

This process requires focus, so I invite you to set aside some distraction free time where you...

Most people admit to procrastinating from time to time. Their reasons vary, but include things like avoiding boredom, difficulty, and tasks believed to have little reward. 

There's a good chance you're putting off something in your life right now. It could be a difficult conversation, an important task, or the steps needed to make a major improvement in your life.

In this video, I share five research-based strategies for beating procrastination, which can help you to get started on what matters most, and overcome procrastination one day at a time.

Mistakes are an unavoidable mark of our humanity. And though the extent of damage caused by them varies, as will the steps required to address them, we all have the opportunity to learn and grow from them.

Like most people, I don't like making mistakes. Such is my dislike of mistakes that I've been known to double or triple check punctuation and grammar on text messages.

However, despite being aware of my dislike of making mistakes, I'm of the belief that embracing them is an important part of my development.

So, with mistakes being an inevitable, yet valuable part of our experience, here are five things to consider the next time you make one. Each could prove valuable to your development.

1. Own your mistake

Put differently, take responsibility. In every situation, resist the urge to either duck or skim past what you've done.

It's only as you acknowledge and weigh the impact of your mistake, that you'll know how to deal with it.

Also, in acknowledging your mistake, you demonstrate...

The world's top performers, from title winning athletes to successful entrepreneurs, all have one thing in common; an ability to think in a way that helps them perform at their best to get the best possible outcomes.

Like these high performers, a commitment to developing the way you think will be key to giving yourself the best chance of achieving your goals and aspirations.

In this video, I share five simple practices you can start using today, that could help you develop a high performance mindset and begin to see significant changes in your life.

We all have rituals of some kind. These could be described as routine tasks or activities we do on a regular basis; more often than not, on autopilot. Showering, exercising, and drinking a morning coffee, are typical examples. 

Some of your rituals occur by default, as they'd have been ingrained in you from an early age. For example, bed making, teeth brushing, and locking the front door at night. Possibly!

However, there'll be others you might've introduced in later life. Which I suspect, in most cases would've been incorporated in an effort to improve your lives in some way shape or form.

For example, a daily exercise schedule, self-care practice, or productivity routine, are each forms of rituals you may have introduced into your life to either improve yourself, or how you work.

But with time, what can happen if we're not careful, is that our rituals can become an obstacle to our wellbeing and progress, rather than an...

When was the last time you felt out of your depth? How did you cope? We live in a complex and fast-moving world. And, with the ever changing contexts we find ourselves in, the reality is there'll always be occasions when we experience feelings of inadequacy.

You may find yourself being asked to take on a new role, lead on a project, or share your learning or experience with others. And at times, these opportunities may give rise to insecurities. With these insecurities can come the onset of a well known phenomenon called imposter syndrome; a feeling of not being good enough. And, despite knowing you're not the finished article, these feelings can have a crippling effect.

Some of my clients speak of experiencing imposter syndrome. They express having doubts about their capabilities and feeling concerns about second guessing themselves. I take the opportunity to acknowledge their doubts and concerns, before inviting them to consider the reality of their beliefs. Typically, what then...

For some people, just the idea of being ‘more productive’ can either feel intimidating or cause them to shy away from it altogether.

And this is because productivity is one of those things that, although you know it has huge benefits for achieving important things, it can be difficult to maintain.

But if you’re willing to take some achievable and effective first steps, ‘being more productive’ doesn't need to be too difficult.

In this video, I share five simple steps to being more productive that can help you to start making better use of your time and energy today!

Though success may typically be attributed to intellect, strategy, talent or even genetics, there's one aspect of high achievement which can easily be overlooked; mental toughness.

What is mental toughness?

Mental toughness is a mindset or personality trait which helps to enable consistent performance under stress. Put differently, it's how well you manage your behaviour when faced with varying degrees of pressure. As such, mental toughness is considered a valuable asset, which when applied, can lead to you excelling in your personal and professional life.

Indeed, we all face struggles, with some being more difficult to manage than others. However, what mental toughness does is allow you to persevere when the odds are against you. Becoming mentally tough is learning how to resist and manage the doubts, setbacks and worries which would ordinarily prevent you from achieving your desired outcomes.

Also, it's important to note where mental toughness differs to resilience, as over time...

In processing too much information we limit our ability to perform at our best and increase the risk of decision fatigue. This is why finding ways to avoid brain overload is key to our effectiveness.

Each day we’re faced with making thousands of decisions. Some are mundane, like what cereal to have, while others are more serious. For example, whether to sell our home or undergo surgery.

Decision making is also taxing on our working memory. That is, our ability to hold, process and use new information to guide our behaviour (Hall & Jarrold, 2015).

Similarly, as we use our decision making muscles, our ability to self-regulate and make sound choices reduces. This results in an increased risk of making poor, unethical, and possibly costly decisions (Kouchaki & Smith, 2014).

So what can we do?

The mental demands of responsibility

It's not uncommon to feel overwhelmed or stressed by the number of decisions you need to make on a daily basis. Some may also find...

The connection between your thoughts and feelings can be so strong that you respond to events on autopilot.

These default responses can develop into unhealthy thought cycles, which result in you becoming more and more tense and anxious.

In this video, I share three basic distraction techniques you can use to overcome worrying thoughts that might be preventing you from performing at your best.