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Hello, and welcome to Confidence counts. Episode Number 23. Oh, it feels so good to be in the 20s and also Happy New Year, 2021, now I think we’ve all got a lot riding on 2021. Like, I think it only has to be slightly better than 2020 and we’ll feel like it’s the best year ever. But think we probably need to keep our expectations in check, given the current circumstances.
Now I’m recording this before Christmas, so I’m hoping that we don’t get a whole load of bad news in the next week or otherwise my cheery mood is going to feel largely inappropriate on 1st January, when this goes out, but I do wish you a Happy New Year. I wanted to talk to you today about 2021 and what we can do to make it count.
So let’s have a recap on 2020 first of all. It’s been an interesting year. 2020 was, you know, fun. There has been a lot that’s happened. Life has changed in a fairly dramatic way. We’ve had to learn to adapt to things that haven’t ever happened in our lifetimes, and to actually manage some new emotions and some new situations.
There’s been a lot of feelings and strange times. But, I think it is also worth looking at things in a bit more detail. We can write 2020 off but let’s think about actually what happened. And for me, 2020 was a great year. When I look at it and focus on the positives, lots of good things happened.
So 2020 was the year that I visited eight countries. I have not visited eight countries in one year at any other point in my lifetime. So, that is quite incredible. That’s eight countries and three continents. We started the year in Australia and managed to do a bit of time in Southeast Asia, and across Europe. That all happened before the middle of March, when COVID became a big issue in the UK.
On top of that, I was able to take Looking After Your Pennies, which back in the day was something I did on the side, into a full-time job. We took it with us when we went travelling. And, yeah, it made me a bit of money then, but I’ve now taken that full time and that was only as a result of the pandemic of COVID really. It was the catalyst that I needed to turn this into a substantial income source for myself and my family.
I also had my highest income month, ever. So, I was a teacher, before this and through my current job, running Looking After Your Pennies, I have now exceeded what I was earning as a teacher, so that is quite incredible.
Furthermore, my husband and I have done a whole load of DIY. We’ve changed our master bedroom, we’ve completely redecorated downstairs, we’ve got a new kitchen, and if you’ve been following me on Instagram, you will have seen the book nook that we’ve installed under our stairs. If you haven’t seen that head over to Instagram to that you can check that out.
When I look back on 2020, I can’t look back on it, and forget about those good things. I understand there’s been a lot of bad things that have happened. I’ve had some low points, and it will have been far worse for other people. I’m not trying to gloss over that I’m not trying to ignore those things. But I am trying to look for some of the good that happened in 2020. Because, that’s our springboard into 2021. If we can take the good things that happened in 2020 and build on those, then we have a good chance of actually making 2021 a good year for us.
What can you actually do? What can we do to make 2021a good year? A better year than 2020 although that’s setting the bar really low. But to feel successful and accomplished and like you’ve done something positive, particularly with your finances in 2021.
We’re going to start off with three tips to make 2021 count, particularly when it comes to our finances and our money.
Number one, get a goal. It’s easy to kind of dismiss the idea of New Year’s resolutions and there’s a lot of research, particularly around diets, they say like they say you should never start a new diet on a Monday. And I also think that’s probably true like I feel like the first of January is an honorary Monday. So we probably shouldn’t start new diets on the first of January, because they’re more likely to fail. But there’s no reason why we can’t get a goal in our lives, not necessarily something that we’re trying to achieve just in 2021 but something we want to achieve in our lives, or over a longer period of time, at least.
We want to get really clear about it so what is it. What do you want your life to look like? How is it going to feel? What is it going to be like if you were to make those changes? I want you to get some sort of focus around that goal, so you know what you’re working towards.
Some examples could be that you want to start investing a regular amount. You might want to start investing £200 a month. That’s a really simple goal. I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy for you to achieve, you might not have 200 pounds, but you can start working towards that.
Start thinking about the steps that you need to take to achieve that. You might want to look bigger picture you might want to be mortgage free, so you can start thinking about how it would feel to be mortgage free. You might start thinking about some of the steps that you would take to get to that point. How much would you need to pay off? You can play around with some calculators online to see what sort of amounts and what sort of timescales, you can achieve that in.
We can have really big dreams. My dream( I have a picture of this I’m on my vision board) is to get a beach house in Australia with a swimming pool and ocean views. That is my vision, that is what I’m working towards. So I’m making steps. My business is a huge part of that and I’m really clear about it. I’ve got the picture. I went on an estate agent site in Australia and found the house, so I know what I’m working towards. Having a goal, and not necessarily a time limited goal, but a goal that you are working towards across your life is important. It will give you a focus and it will give you that kind of reality check throughout the year. So you can then go, “Oh, actually, if I spend this money on this does that get me closer to that goal?” or “is this action that I’m taking now getting me closer or further away from that thing that I really want?” It’s a really important step.
It will help you to feel successful in 2021 if you have it and you make some progress towards it.
That leads me on to number two, which is to get productive. You need do something. I do one-word resolutions, so my one word resolution for 2021 is “challenge.” I’m going to be pushing myself out of my comfort zone, doing more things that I’ve kind of been ignoring but need to get done.
My one word resolution for 2020 was “action.” I just needed to get out there and do stuff. I did it. I’ve told you already about the places that we went to, and the things that I’ve achieved in 2020 so I can look back on 2020 and feel like it was a success.
Putting things into action is a hugely important step. Now, it doesn’t necessarily mean if your goal was to start investing £200 a month. You’re not going to maybe jump straight in and do that. It might be too much for you right now, but there are some other things that you could do. Maybe you could open an investment account. Maybe you could start investing smaller amounts. Maybe you could do some learning around it so that you understand it all. Maybe you could just start looking at ways that you could save money or make more money to actually find that £200.
You don’t have to do this all the time. It’s important to not feel the need to be productive all the time because sometimes some of your best ideas and your most creative solutions come out of the “non-productive” time. (Although we can argue that that is productive.) But we don’t need to be busy all the time to be successful. It’s just about taking action. Doing something to move yourself closer to that place where you want to be.
The third one, and I’ve kind of alluded to this already, is to get educated. I think 2021 is going to be the year for this. Now I’m not saying you have to go out and get a degree or do a doctorate, or something like that, but just invest in yourself. Learn the things that you’ve always wanted to know, but I’ve never had the time to figure them out. Maybe you could buy some books or a course or sign up to something online or just follow some more accounts and listen to some podcasts or read a few more websites. But try and invest in yourself. Spend some time, spend some money on learning new things and fill in the gaps in your knowledge that are maybe stopping you from taking the action that you need to take, and therefore stopping you from achieving that goal.
It’s a really important thing that is often overlooked. But wouldn’t it be great if 2021 was the year that you learn a whole load of stuff that you’ve been meaning to learn and you never got around to before?
If you did nothing else in 2021, that would be such a huge achievement and think of the great position you would be in going into 2022. If you had all the knowledge and all the skills and were ready to take these huge steps and huge leaps in your life.
We can make 2021 absolutely incredible. If we set a goal, we take some action, and we just learned some new things. We don’t have to put a whole load of pressure on making this the best year ever. I think it’s probably still not going to be great at least in my little corner of the UK. So, we need to be realistic but there are still things that we can do.
Anyway, I would love it if you could hit subscribe. I’ve got some fabulous content coming out on this podcast over the next few weeks. And you don’t want to miss it to hit that subscribe button and if you want to leave me a five-star rating and a review, that would be much appreciated. Thank you very much for listening to episode number 23 of confidence counts. I will see you in the next episode.