New Year can be a magical time of the year (and no I’m not talking about the parties and champagne side of things).
The magic of New Year is in the sense of new beginnings and new opportunities.
The magic lies in believing you have a fresh start.
At this time of year, people are setting goals and planning how they want the coming year to turn out.
Around this time of year, there’s always a lot of New Year/New You lingo flying around.
As much as I appreciate the New Year/New You concept, the fact is you won’t wake up a different person on New Year’s Day.
Whilst New Year presents new beginnings (and we love those) all of our bad habits and fears don’t disappear overnight.
Here are tips on getting the jump on the new year.
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Love yourself right now
Accept and love who you are right now.
The new year is about enhancing the wonderful person you already are, not fixing something you consider broken.
Personal growth and self-care work hand in hand, so love yourself right now and it will be so much easier to work on your personal growth in the new year.
We all have flaws and weaknesses. Instead of constantly fighting against who you are, understand and work with (instead of against) any weaknesses you have.
Do a review of your habits
Look at modifying some of your regular habits. New Year represents a great opportunity to adopt better habits that influence our everyday lives.
Related content –
- 10 Best Books on Habits – Learn how to break old habits and create new ones.
- 10 Situations Where Awareness Can Help With Changing Habits
It’s about your attitude
Have a positive and motivated outlook for the coming year.
Your attitude matters – big time!
Write it down
Regardless of whether you are goal-setting or making resolutions – put them in writing. There is power in the written word.
Clarify what you want
Be clear about what you want.
Work out exactly what you want to achieve in the year and then break it down into what steps you need to take each month/week/day to make it happen. Granted you might not have all the answers or strategies straight up, but it’s a good start.
Be flexible, adaptable, and courageous when plans change.
Plan
Understand exactly what a year looks like. I personally love working with a wall planner.
Recently I bought a perpetual year planner (much kinder to the environment and cost-effective than the ones you need to throw out every year) and I’m starting to plan out my year.
When I first started this project I was amazed at how short a year looks. If we don’t set solid goals and take action on them, it’s easy to see how we can get to the end of the year and wonder ‘where did the year go?’
A fantastic book planner I’ve started using is The High Performance Planner by Brendon Burchard.
This planner goes hand in hand with one of my favorite books – High Performance Habits.
I am loving using this daily planner and I’ll definitely write a separate post shortly about how it is positively influencing my life.
Schedule relaxation and fun
Remember planning isn’t all work and no play!
Start planning your holidays and fun weekends away, book catch-ups with friends, and celebrate special occasions.
Related content –
- Are You Having Enough Fun?
- Have You Been All Work and No Play Lately?
- How to Lighten Up – 25 Ways for More Fun, Play and Relaxation
Don’t obsess
Don’t obsess about what you don’t want next year, keep your mind focused on the positive.
Sometimes we spend too much time obsessing about what we don’t want, instead of focusing on achieving what we do want. Our anxiety can make us focus on all the wrong things.
Sometimes despite our best efforts, we get off track. That’s okay – stuff happens.
Just make sure you get yourself back on the right track. When you get off track be kind to yourself.
No negative self-talk or name-calling.
Related post – 3 Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Positive Self-Talk
Work out how you want to feel
In the words of the fantastic Danielle LaPorte, you need to work out how you want to feel?
Asking yourself how you want to feel will help you choose the right goals for the year. Danielle has a great book – The Desire Map, to help you work out exactly what you want.
I saw a thought-provoking quote the other day that really struck a chord with me.
Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life”. – Robin Sharma
I hope you have a joyous, successful, and magical year. Have a Happy New Year Everyone!
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