7 Killer Tips To Start The Year On The Right Foot

ORGANIZE IT

The first step to empower yourself and make this year yours is to organize it by designing a planner of everything you want to do. You should think ahead in order to meet all the tasks you intend to do. Once you have listed them on your calendar/diary/journal, you will be able to schedule them (weekly for instance) and how many hours and days you will be spending your time with it.

Of course, before starting to organize this year, you need to pick which areas of your life you want to upgrade and the new hobbies you aspire to learn. Everything, including small things like “saving more money”, deserves a few minutes per week so you can follow your progress and prepare yourself for the following week.

 

For example, your goals for 2020 could be:

1- Save Money, 2- Learn French and 3- Train your Iguana.

Every Sunday night, you can prepare you next weekly schedule and, depending on your arrangements and working hours you can decide to:

1: spend Tuesday and Wednesday from 7-9 pm learning french. On Thursday and Friday, you will spend the same hours training your iguana and finally, your financial goal this week will be cooking your dinner 5 days a week and use the tube for transport instead of ordering an Uber.

Try not to make too many unachievable resolutions. If your purpose is to learn 5 new languages, train for a triathlon, read 133 books and become a professional sculptor, apart from continuing with your full-time job, odds are you are going to drop most of your resolutions early in the year. The failure of committing to all your resolutions can harm your motivation and your mood, so don’t allow that to happen to you!

Make sure your resolutions are realistic and they will make a positive change in your life.

 

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SMALL ACHIEVEMENTS, NO MATTER HOW SMALL THEY ARE

Write them down and if it makes you feel satisfied, share them with your coworkers or family members.

Did you increase your writing speed by a few seconds over the last weeks? Write it down and tell someone! Have you lowered your cholesterol levels this month? Congratulate yourself!

 

 

Being aware of your potentials and accomplishments is key to improve your self-confidence and keep mastering yourself. Even if we don’t realize, we unconsciously tend to feel more influenced by our small failures than by our victories. We give ourselves little credit when we succeed at something as opposed to when we fail. We tell ourselves that we are just doing the “right thing” and it’s “our job” to succeed, but we aren’t that soft when we disappoint and find ourselves to be not good enough in some area of life.

 

STICK TO AT LEAST 1 POSITIVE THING EVERY DAY

Don’t allow a single day to go by without doing something good for you. Maybe that something is reading 10 minutes before going to rest. Maybe you can do a few crunches on the floor before getting into bed to sleep. Or maybe it is repeating the Dutch words you have learned today (or any other language you intend to learn!).

 

 

Tremendous improvements are always the result of very little modifications and additions. If you still haven’t read the book “The Compound effect”, it’s a great one to start off this 2020!

 

MAKE A LIST WITH THE BOOKS YOU WANT TOR READ THIS YEAR AND ITS ORDER

I keep expanding a list of books all year long to the point where I have dozens of books that I want to read and I feel overwhelmed.

 

 

I end up forgetting WHY I desired to read some of them in the first place. The headache of not knowing which one should be the next one, and then discovering another 3 of them that I want to read immediately and everything becomes so overwhelming that I end up reading in a hurry, which results in not enjoying the book as much as I should.

I have decided to create a list with the most important books I have to read this year. I will sort the order in which I read them too. As soon as I finish one, I will spend zero minutes trying to decide which one should be the next. Have you ever tried to organize your content organization or are you fine being a “spontaneous reader”?

 

MANIFEST YOUR CONSUMER HABITS THIS YEAR

We are encouraged to think about our professional growth, our salaries, our food routine and exercise habits, but nobody talks about our buying mentality!

 

 

Being self-aware of your shopping style is massively important. Try to do a rewind of last year. If you control everything you buy with calendars and diaries, this task is extremely easy. You only need to have a look at it and check where is your money going. Check one of my prior posts where I talk about my budgeting planners.

If you don’t, January it’s the best season to start doing it. It will help you not just to be more self-aware but also to analyze during and at the end of the year how you have performed.

 

FOLLOW YOUR FAVORITE YOUTUBE CHANNELS AND BLOGS

Following a few self-improvement websites or YouTube Channels can create positive change in your mood to the point where it can help you start the day (or finish the day) with a positivity rush.

 

 

This one is tricky. If you aren’t careful enough, you can end up watching video after video or blog post after blog post and spending more time than you were willing to. There is a difference between starting the day watching a 15-minute video and spending 4 hours every evening in front of the computer watching video after video. A positive self-improvement podcast will give you a breeze of positivity whilst hours of podcasts will affect your productivity.

That’s the reason I am going to write down the channels that I want to follow religiously. (Let me know if you would like me to publish some of my favourite ones).

 

INCLUDE GREENS IN EVERY MEAL

It can be eating an orange instead of a sugary cereal bar every afternoon. In my experience, the easiest way to do it is by starting the day with vitamins and minerals. If you don’t feel like preparing a smoothie, try drinking some natural juice or coconut water. 

You only need 1 single healthy change at a time. If you are not into veggies or fruits or even coconut water, try switching your normal milk for a vegan alternative (almond milk, oat milk, etc.). If you are already drinking a vegan alternative like soy, then get it organic instead. It is better for you!