I think it’s safe to say we’re all ready for a new year and to put 2020 behind us. From what I keep seeing online lately, everyone seems to be excited to welcome 2021 with open arms, myself included. It has been by far one of the hardest years many of us have ever experienced.
It’s been a year of trying to stay afloat in so many regards that the excitement for a new year seems like the best way to press the restart button. A way to bring those coping skills we learned in 2020 to the forefront and prepare ourselves for a better and brighter year ahead. But that doesn’t mean making a daunting list of resolutions – or at least for me it doesn’t. I’ve always thought new year resolutions were a bunch of crap any year but over the last few I’ve actually been super aware to not do them. If anything, I make changes exactly when I feel like I need to instead of waiting until January 1st.
Make Changes as You Go
We’re so wired up by society to welcome the new year with, “new year, new me” but why wait until January 1st to change? You want to start working out and be healthier? Start doing it the moment you feel the need to make the change. Waiting until the new year just hinders your progress and sets you up for failure. The minute you miss a workout it’s as if your whole resolution went down the drain and you feel like you failed. But why put those pressures on yourself on the first day of the year?!
I stopped making resolutions back in my twenties, quickly realizing that they just didn’t work for me. With my birthday in January, I always felt that if I broke my resolution I would start again on the 21st. But then by February I would be back in the same place and off the wagon once again. So for the last few years I’ve made the changes I felt I needed when I needed them.
Try Something New
On the first of January instead of making a resolution list, why not make a “reflections of the past year” list. Or how about making self care a major priority going into the coming months.
2020 has taught us some serious life lessons and those can’t be learned and forgotten about. I for one, will open up the year by opening my Five Minute Journal and making some gratitude notes. I’ll reflect on what 2020 was like and how far I’ve come. I’ve said “no” to conversations I didn’t want to have and set boundaries where I felt necessary. I learned that practicing gratitude helps me move forward and gives me peace. And I started all of those things in 2020 when I felt the need to bring changes to my life. I didn’t wait until the new year to make a better me.
We’re ten days away from the new year, what are you bringing into it?
Here’s yesterday’s blogmas post in case you missed it.
