We start every year with big goals and a desire to accomplish more than any previous year. We spend each day telling ourselves that tomorrow will be the day we’re going to start living life the way we’d like to live it. There’s always an inherent desire for more on the horizon but not acted upon.

We work hard and hit roadblocks. We take action and experience a setback. Things don’t work out as planned and derail us from our desired course. We come to the end of too many years not having lived the way we knew was possible. 

You can live an incredible life, accomplish your goals, and feel good about the way you spend each day. It’s going to take consistently putting in the work to build healthy habits that optimize you as a leader. No person is guaranteed tomorrow, and it’s time to stop living that way. 

If this will be the period in your life in which you accomplish your goals, it’s going to take some essential mindset shifts. Optimized leaders achieve goals with the energy, motivation, and hunger to accomplish more than they thought possible. 

Here are four mindset shifts that help you optimize yourself and accomplish your growth-focused goals. Understand these four principles.

1. My goals are possible if I’m willing to do hard things. 

Social media makes it seem glamorous to work on your goals. What’s not often shown when somebody posts a win is the hard things they chose to do to get that win. Make no mistake; it’s hard work to live a life of growth. You’re going to have to do hard things to get there.

Your dream life is worthy of the effort, and you need to understand that you can do hard things. One mindset shift that helps you optimize your actions is committing to doing the hard things instead of practicing avoidance.

When the going gets tough, avoidance becomes our default reaction. Avoiding hard things catches up to you at some point. Make the mindset shift that you’re going to take on hard things and resist the temptation to use avoidance as a strategy.

Whatever you’re facing or will face on the journey to become the best version of yourself will not go away just because you try to avoid it. Determine that you will be the type of leader that embraces the work and is not afraid of doing the hard things. 

2. It’s my daily choices that lead to long-term accomplishments. 

When we think of change, we’re thinking about the big picture and what it will be like once we get there. The big picture and accomplishment come from the daily choices that you make. Your choices build your habits, and that affects how successful you’ll become.

One essential mindset shift is understanding the importance of your daily choices. You make a shift by becoming intentional about your planning and execution each day. You set boundaries and evaluate what needs to go on your daily schedule based on your long-term goals.

You stop thinking about the long-term picture and view this as a journey of where you’re going. Your goal then becomes the daily compounding of the work you’re doing. You’re playing the long game, and you’re committed to doing the hard things that get you to that vision of success. 

Focus on planning your day the night before and be intentional about what goes on your plan. Focus on living each day fully and be present in your life. Make daily choices that compound and get you closer to your goals. 

“The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” – Buddha

3. I deserve every good thing that comes from consistency. 

Something interesting happens when we accomplish our goals and experience the benefits of that accomplishment. The fear of success has kept more than a few people from going after their dream life. One other limiting belief is not feeling worthy of that dream life.

Worthiness and feeling as if you deserve success are a critical mindset shift that needs to happen. If you’re going to do the work to optimize yourself, you have to believe you deserve the results of that work. You have to shift your mind and tell yourself you are worthy of good things.

One of the best ways to optimize your mind is to act like you’ve been there before. You are worthy, and you will do whatever it takes to accomplish your goals. You deserve nothing but good things; believe it and then do something about it.

4. I’m going to focus on what I want — not what I don’t have. 

One thing that’s understood but not practiced is this idea of focus and attention. You attract what you focus on, and you should be focusing on what you want.

Things don’t often work out as planned, and that tends to draw our focus. We focus on what we don’t have instead of focusing on what we want — it creates a bad attitude. There will always be things you don’t have or that don’t work out, but an optimized mindset understands those are all lessons and opportunities.

Your focus should be on where you’re going and what you have. As you focus on what you do have, it creates an attitude of gratitude, attracting more good things into your life. It also keeps your mind sharp because gratitude helps you stay energized.

One mindset shift that helps optimization is focusing on what you have instead of what you don’t have. The goal is to look forward and keep taking steps towards your goals. 

Happiness comes when we create freedom in our life. Growth means accomplishment and making progress towards that life of freedom. Shift your mindset to live a happy life, optimize yourself, and accomplish every one of your goals.

It’s a great time to push towards your vision of success and accomplishment. It starts with consistency and building healthy habits. Make these for mindset shifts and do the work to become the best version of yourself. Make it happen.