Grace Beverley is 27 and owns three multi-million pound businesses. She is an influencer with more than a million followers. She has a music degree from Oxford University, and in addition to juggling her businesses and posting weekly vlogs to YouTube, she is a podcaster and the author of one self-help book. This is a woman who knows how to achieve.
She also knows that it requires a lot of work to maintain close friendships, a fitness regime, and quality time with her fiancé on top of everything else. But Beverley is proudly Type A. “I’m big on planning,” she says. “I accidentally created a whole business from my productivity method.”
Her ‘productivity method’ is famous amongst her followers. It is one of the major ingredients of her success. “So I set clear yearly goals for every element of my life in January. I break them down into goals for Personal Development, Relationships, Finances, Career and Business, Attitude and Mindset, and Health,” she explains. “I then distill each of these goals into habits where possible – so instead of giving myself the lofty goal of ‘getting fit in 2024’, I’m keeping myself accountable with a habit like 30 minutes of daily movement.”
At the start of each new month, Beverley writes down her monthly goals that will help her work towards her yearly ones. Then every Monday, she writes down weekly goals that will help her reach those bigger monthly ones. Then things get even more granular. Every day, she tracks her daily habits, to make sure they are in alignment with her weekly ones. “I’m a big believer in the atomic habits theory set out by James Clear in his book,” she explains. “He essentially says that the real change in your life comes from the tiny habits and changes you instill on a daily basis, rather than unachievable wishes.”
Her achievements are, in part, down to her January goal-setting. “I’ve really built myself a life through these habits, to make me as good at my job as possible,” she says. “They have allowed me to balance the need to recover, and give my brain the space to be creative. I’m not ashamed to say that I love working and I feel like my habits have really allowed me to do that this year.”
It hasn’t always been easy. Beverley has been on the edge of burnout many times in her career. “I have had a tendency to overegg my goals and aim higher than possible, so this year I really focused on making my habits as achievable as I could. A year of consistency is so much better than a month of achievement followed by nothing.”
Here, Beverley explains the small habits she has sworn by this year, and (mostly) stuck to:
Seeing my best friends every Monday night for dinner – whatever the day has thrown at me
“My favourite habit of all this year has been turning my time with my friends into habits rather than a treat. I see my best friends for dinner every week where physically possible. Having it as a recurring appointment not only means you’re there to support each other whatever is going on that week – but means you’re not letting your closest bonds drift, which is so easy to do when you’re all busy with work and life. Plus it’s so much better than a brunch once a month where you don’t get beyond a catch-up. It might not sound that carefree and spontaneous, but scheduling in girls’ night is one of the most caring things you can do in my opinion.
Daily movement in whatever form with my walking desk
My workout goals have fluctuated throughout the year depending on my workload and how I’m feeling but I think having one general goal of daily movement, whether that’s a walk or weight lifting, has kept me consistently motivated because I know it’s achievable whatever my schedule.
This has also included taking my ‘work from home’ meetings on a walking desk so I get my steps in. I spend the majority of my time at my desk in the office, and last year I noticed this meant I was living a much more sedentary lifestyle than I had realised. So this year I committed to working activity every day and I feel so much better as a result.
Your goals are never going to be perfect unless you’re a mind reader who can tell exactly what life is going to throw at you over the next 12 months. What’s most important is that you’re flexible enough to know when you need to edit or change your goals to fit with the new direction you’re going in. That being said, I’ve been weightlifting consistently since September and I’ve never felt better.
Not using my commutes for work – instead using them to enrich my life with a podcast or a long-read
I find it really clears my head and makes me so much more productive when I do arrive at the office and start my first work block. It also helps me to be more creative throughout the day. I might read or hear something that sets off an idea for a meeting, or helps me to rethink a problem.
Setting my alarm as Radio 4 so I can stay up to date (and improve my pub quiz performance)
I love keeping up with news so it wasn’t something I’ve struggled with, but I kept finding myself scrolling through news unnecessarily during the day, which can really throw me off my time-blocked schedule. So having Radio 4 as a briefing every morning really helps to balance my news consumption and makes it a positive habit.
Reading for 10 minutes before bed every night
When you’re running a company it’s so easy to lay awake at night thinking about stock delays or marketing plans, taking time to read my book ends my day and creates a boundary between work and sleep which is so important to me. I’ve read a real range of books, I love a self-help book, but I also, like everyone else, became obsessed with the A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas series.
