So you have decided to change your life next year is going to be the year when things really become different, because last year, life punched you in the face and things didn't work out last year - didn't live up to your expectations, but that is okay, because there Is next year and next year definitely won't be like last year or the year before right? Well, it might be different, but it is only going to be different. If you make it different, you can't keep putting the same meat into a mincer and expect a different kind of sausage to come out. Most people will plod along the same road every single day, expecting something to suddenly be different. We all hope that little moment of magic, but everything that changes has one thing in common.

Something has to change. If you want next year to be different to last year, something has to change it, something or someone, and i've got a secret for you that someone is you because nobody else is going to change your future. For you, this is one of the great levelers in life. It doesn't matter how rich you are.

It does not matter what family you born into. It doesn't matter if you've been fed by a silver spoon or picked up rice with your bare hands. The path for your future is in your hands and nobody else's sure. We all have different starting points.

We all have different situations. For some of us, life is going to be much tougher than for others. Some of us have obstacles to overcome. That may seem impossible, but if you are looking for how you are going to change your situation next year, you have two choices.

You can make a long list of reasons why you are not going to make it. This is the easy option. So this is the one most of us most of us. Every single time are going to take.

You don't have the time you don't have the skills. You don't have time to learn the skills. You don't have the time to even find out what the skills you don't have time to learn. Are you don't have money and making money is far easier.

If you already have some to start with, you have strangling debts deaths that aren't your fault. You have obligations, you have family children, friends and you don't have luck on your side. Making a long list of excuses in your head is easy. It gives us the comfort blanket that makes us feel like it's, not our fault.

It takes a problem and passes it to some other place to somewhere else to someone else somewhere that isn't us, but you have another choice. You have the choice to be the agent of change for yourself. You can make next year different and you can improve things. You can turn things around, but don't make the mistake of letting excuses.

Be the reason why you ultimately don't instead take these five steps, because if you follow these steps, you'll do all right. I can tell you that step. One learn. Most people fail at the very first step.

They just don't learn. Learning is boring. Why waste your time? Learning you are not at school anymore and learning doesn't pour money into your bank account. It is not the next dog token.

If you have already learned everything you need to know to make it and become rich. You have learned nothing at all, because the more you learn, the more you find out. You are yet to learn. Learn new skills, improve yourself become more efficient, be smarter, be smarter with your time, be smarter.

With your choices and with your priorities, you can learn most things out there for free, so don't start making excuses before you've even got started. Learning can lead to a better paid job or open your perspective to entirely new opportunities, new paths, but before you tread too many new paths go and look at step, two which is building on your foundations. We all have our foundations, we're all born different and your differences are your strengths. They are not my strengths or anybody else's.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise starting a new project starting something afresh is exciting. Thinking of a new idea or a new direction to take every day is great, but if you want to put up a house next year that will weather storms that are going to come, you will need a solid foundation. So, invest your time in building out that foundation, because i can tell you now, those storms will eventually come at some point. You will fail.

Sometimes you'll fail hard you'll find out that you suck at something. You will completely fall flat on your face and then you'll realize that you suck actually at a lot of things, because we all do that's what makes us human, but that doesn't even matter you should embrace who you are and what your foundations are. Your foundations might look different to other people's, but that is the plot of life that you have got, and that is what you need to build. On top of you can't go and build on somebody else's step 3 make new beginnings.

We are all creatures of habit. That's what keeps us sane and what gives us the structure we crave, but new beginnings don't come from following a habit and new beginnings are the agent of change that can make next year different, truly different to last year. New beginnings mean taking yourself out of your comfort zone, it will make you uncomfortable, you will feel like an imposter. Maybe you need to change direction and go down an unfamiliar path that might take you to a better place than where your current path is headed.

But you won't know, maybe you need to start something on the side. Maybe you need to let out the creative demon inside you that you didn't know was there? Maybe you have a gift that has been sat in a strapping paper since the day you were born? Don't be afraid to try new things and try them hard, give the tree a really really hard shake to see what fruits fall down to the ground and don't be afraid to fall flat on your face into the deep cold mud in the process. That is just part of the game. The next part of the game after that is to get right up, wipe the mud of your face.

So your eyes can see what's in front of you and go again most of these games you're going to lose, but you don't need to win every single one. You don't need to be forrest. Gump mama might indeed be right. Life might really be a box of chocolates and you might not know which one you're gon na get, but i am telling you that if you try enough of them, you will eventually find one that you really like step.

Four persevere, most people who make it this far will fail at this step because it is the hardest one of the lot by some margin. It is easy to get yourself fired up one morning when you feel great you've woken up in the perfect mood to conquer the world, and you want to go and do it and you might even make yourself keep going for a couple of weeks. Maybe, like you know, the 95 percent of new gym joiners are at the beginning of january, but fast forward to a dreary, bitterly cold and wet morning in late february, not the same year, but the year after you have a million things. In your mind, life has moved on.

You have problems, you don't have the time and you're gon na skip today. It's just one day. That is where perseverance comes in. Nobody is going to push you like.

You can push yourself. Nobody will challenge you when you don't keep going in fact, most people that you know will do the exact opposite. They will think that you're weird, because you're grinding away on a saturday evening, instead of watching the latest reality dancing show on tv, they will think you're. Weird because you are reading a university logic textbook, instead of the celebrity gossip column in the paper, they'll think you're, also very weird for learning how to code for the first time, instead of completing your favorite video game.

Perseverance is hard. Make no mistake about it, but perseverance is also the biggest differentiator between those who do and those who do not. We often attribute success to a unique concoction, a weird mix of natural ability and luck, because we didn't see your favorite footballer spending three hours practicing before school, every single day come rain or shine. We did not see your favorite musician practice daily grinding away at it.

Feeling like they're not getting anywhere for years before, anyone ever heard them play, and we didn't see the owner of a small no-name company battling every day to make their tiny business get somewhere to make it succeed a decade before you went and invested in that multi-billion Public company and step five get up when you fall down. Perseverance is important, but if you're going to do really well, you are going to have to fall and you are going to fall if you're not falling regularly. You are just not trying hard enough and giving up when you fall down is easy. Sometimes it just all seems like too much.

Sometimes it seems like everything is gone. Maybe your early work led to nowhere. Maybe your fragile business crash and bird as humans. We attribute far more weight to physical things that we can see and feel and touch than to the knowledge and the experience that we have gained.

But it is the knowledge and experience that will drive your success in the future and part of that. Building that knowledge and experience is through failure. You have to test your thinking if your tests only ever return positive results, you're, not testing anything you're in an echo chamber, you're just seeking confirmation, and if you want next year to be different to last year, you know what you have to do. You knew it all along, but now you just need to go and make it happen.

You.