Make 2021 Your Best Year Ever with these Amazing Free Resources
By: Victoria Forsyth
Tags: New Years Resolutions, 2021, Productivity, Future Self

Whether it is to help with goal setting or making sure you are fully rested and recovered from 2020, these amazing (free) resources will help get the most out of 2021.

1. 30-Day Future Self Project

Benjamin Hardy, PhD, has created this amazing free programme that is fantastic for thinking about what you would like from your future. Daily emails, videos, exercises help you to clarify what you want and how to get there. The course is based on up-to-date science and delivered in a fun and personal way. The course covers amongst other things: clarity, transforming trauma, compound effect, habits, creative solutions and lots more.

The 30-Day Future Self Project is a course you can return to again and again as your future grows bigger and better. I first did it in July 2020 and am going to redo it in January 2021. Even if you aren’t in a great place this course is ideal as you can start as small as you like. Sometimes if we are overwhelmed or depressed we can focus on the past and present too much and this course can simply start to get you excited about the future.

I spent about an hour a day on the course when I did it, although some exercises don’t take that long, but I would recommend a time period where you can devote time to it. Starting it after Christmas may be better than starting before. The course also has a helpful community who can help keep you motivated and supported.

2. Free Audio Books

I have a friend who doesn’t read books. I’m always astounded by how they are depriving themselves of one of the greatest gifts of life. Books are doors to other worlds, other people, other ways of thinking, they can teach us so much.

I turned my finances around by reading ‘Your Money or Your Life’ by Vicki Robin, a collection of words, changed how I thought about and acted with money. It literally changed a big aspect of my life. Books can do this, they can change us.

“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary” Jim Rohn

With audiobooks, we don’t even need to read now, we can listen to a narrator’s dulcet tones as we go for a walk or sit on our commute.

As well as Audible (a paid for subscription) I also access audiobooks through my local library. Free audiobooks! It’s amazing that we have access to books that can change our lives for free.

The following Library Apps allow you access to free audiobooks and eBooks:

Here is an image showing some of my recent listens on BorrowBox:

Some of the Books from My BorrowBox Loan History

We can use books for relaxing, maybe some fiction books as an escape from festivities or a recharge at the end of this year. During lockdown Laurie Lee’s ‘As I walked Out One Midsummer Morning’ transported me to another place and time, it was utter bliss. Or in the new year some self development books to learn from.

If you’re stuck for ideas here are a few reading lists to get you started:

3. Supercharged Relaxation

Neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said that overstimulation is stressing us out and prematurely aging our brains. He called it “America’s hidden epidemic.”

Recovery is important, whether that’s recovering from 2020 or scheduling recovery into our 2021. Recovery is as important, if not more important, than work. The better we recover the better our well being and work engagement.

Standford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman mentioned in a podcast how he uses Yoga Nidra for good brain relaxation. We need to schedule in recovery daily and this is a great way to do that. I have found Yoga Nidras to be deeply relaxing, moreso than guided meditations.

Here are some great free yoga nidra resources:

4. Past Year Review

This isn’t a resource a such, but a free, do-it-yourself exercise that will help focus your direction in 2021.

Creat your own ‘Past Year Review’ as explained by Tim Ferriss.

From his website:

Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week. For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns. Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?” Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2019. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.

I would add to this, listing your wins from 2020 and celebrating them (however small) and going through your amazon order list and seeing if any expenditures had a big positive impact on your life and which ones had no positive impact and were a waste of money.

5. Self-Compassion

Research is growing on the numerous scientific benefits of self-compassion. It can help with self-esteem, PTSD, motivation, learning, pyschological wellbeing, work, resiliance and many more.

If we want to get the best out of ourselves in the new year, self-compassion maybe what clears some of our blockages that are holding us back from getting what we want. It will also be a great resource when our year doesn’t go to plan and life throws us some unexpected curve balls.

Here are some great resources to help us be kinder to ourselves in 2021: