I have to tell you, I have a lot of optimism and excitement about 2015.  2015 is going to be my year! It can be your year as well.  I’ll share it, there’s enough to go around for us all.  I’m even going to give you some tips to help make sure 2015 is your year.

5 Things you need to make 2015 your year:

1. A plan.  Sounds easy. Sounds remedial. Sounds hacky. But you probably don’t have one.  Without a plan, 2015 will not be your year. You need a plan to drive your vision about you’re going to make 2015 your year. Get that done!

2. A tribe.  You need a tribe that knows your plan, and will hold you accountable to your plan.  You need to give them permission to hold you accountable.  When they don’t hold you accountable, you need to find a better tribe that will.  No one said you had to do this alone!  The most valuable, important people in your life are the ones who will hold you accountable to your own success, not the ones who let you off the hook.

3. A measure of success.  Call what you will: goals, metrics, analytics, etc. You need a measuring stick to know if you’re making progress to your plan.  Share these results systematically on a schedule no matter what the results say.  Sharing your bad results will actually allow your tribe to help you get back on track. Sharing your great results will allow your tribe to celebrate with you.  Share it all.

4. Perspective.  This is one I keep learning over and over.  The only person or thing holding me back from being successful, is me.  I need to know my opportunities and find ways to overcome those, almost daily.  Those will throw me off course more than anything. Self-insight is a very powerful and freeing competency.

5.  Have some fun.  I want to be successful, and I want to enjoy it.  Those are not two mutually exclusive things in my world.  I don’t want to just have fun and not be successful.  Part of my measure of success is if I’m having fun and enjoying my life while being successful.

This seems so simple, but I know it’s not.  Most of us will never put the time into really having a plan of success.  Even more will be too scared to share that plan with people who will hold us accountable to it. Still fewer will really want to see the measure of progress, or lack there of.  And, most of us lack the self-insight to really know why we keep failing.  This is very, very difficult to do.  But I’m going to do it.

I’ve got my plan.  I’ve got my tribe.  I know what my goals of success are.  I know I own my own success.

Bring it on bitches.