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Welcome to Week One of my 6-part mini series…
 
HOW TO MAKE  THE NEW YEAR YOUR BITCH
 
ICYMI, I'm a stan for New Years—despite what all the haters on the internet say about how “NeW YeArS ReSoLutIoNS DoN'T WoRk.”
 
(Like,yeah, Brad, maybe they don't work because you scribbled a few half-baked ideas on a scrap piece of paper on December 31st when you were already 2 glasses of Prosecco deep and distracted by the Jonas Brothers singing at the ball drop on TV. Maybe it actually takes some time and reflection and thought?!  Hmmm!?!?)
 
Anyway, people are often shocked to learn that more often than not, I actually stick to my New Years resolutions. And it's because I've developed a whole ass system for only setting ones I actually care about.
 
(Also, let me just say this because I know someone's gonna bring it up: you could do this at any time, it doesn't have to be New Years. You could do this literally in March. I just love the collective “blank slate feeling" that a new year provides us, SUE MEEEEE.)
 
So I thought, let's have some fun this holiday season and do a 6-part series where I walk you through my framework. Yes, we have to start in November. Yes, it requires some ~time~. 
 
And yes, if you're still cranky about New Years Resolutions after these 6 weeks, then, well, idk. At least I tried. 💀
 
 
 
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WEEK ONE
GATHER YOUR DATA
I dunno who needs to hear this, but you cannot look ahead without first looking back.
 
And no, I don't mean in the passive way where you're simply ~thinking about everything that happened this year (and forgetting 90% of it)~.
 
We need the facts. We need the data. We need to write this shit out.
 
You know how like every financial guru on the internet talks about how if you want to get clear about where all your money is running off to, you have to literally pull out your bank statements and physically go through the line items to really understand the cold hard numbers?
 
We're gonna do that—except not for your finances (well, you could do that too, I'm probably going to do that as well lmfao). 
 
We're gonna do it for your life—aka, we're going to get clear on what exactly you all did this year. How you spent your time, where you went, etc etc etc.
 
(This is reason #908234098 why I start this in November, because this is a task that needs some real time & attention.)
 
Now personally, I like to put this data into a few categories:
  • Business
  • Lifestyle/Fun Things
  • Artist Career (because I'm an actor too) 
  • Health & Wellness
  • Finances
(Obviously yours will be different based on what you do and what you value.) 
 
And I'll go through each month and compile all the highlights. What clients did I work with? What new offers did I create? What did I do on the weekends? How many auditions did I have? Was I consistent with the gym? 
 
And so on, and so forth. Anything that feels like something to remember (either good or bad), it gets written down.
 
At this point, I already knooooow you're like—"Sarah, I don't have data to pull out about everything I did this year. And I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, much less what I was doing back in January." 
 
^^ Because chances are, you're not insane like me, and you don't keep track of all your daily small achievements in a Notion spreadsheet
 
(Although if you want to start, it's literally the best confidence-boosting habit I've ever implemented in my life, and I have a free template that walks you through how.) 
 
But that's okay, because you actually DO have a way to collect this data, in the form of:
  • iPhone photos
  • Instagram story archives
  • Emails
  • Texts
  • Credit card statements
  • DMs
  • Your gym's app
  • The downloads folder on your computer
  • .. and I'm sure more that I'm just not thinking of rn.
Like, off the top of my head, I absolutely would not have remembered seeing Wicked in February with BTL Sara, but if I went through my credit card statements, I would have seen The Gershwin on there and remembered. (And probs on my instagram story too.) 
 
Now, I know I'm making this task seem like a ~data driven~ moment, and it is, but it's actually really freaking fun.
 
Like how often do you actually go back and remember a year like this? (It's particularly fun to do during Thanksgiving week because chances are, you'll have no choice but to feel grateful for all the experiences you've had this year.)
 
Pour yourself a glass of wine and make it a ~moment~. 
 
And then meet me back here next week for part 2, where I'm gonna tell you what to do with all this data ;)
 
 
 
Black Friday is live! Now through Monday at midnight, get $200 off all my website templates with code BF23.
 
Happiest Thanksgiving everyone!
Sarah Kleist
 
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