Most people look at the start of the new year a chance to start over with a clean slate.
Whether that means in the little ways like eating healthier, waking up earlier, or in major ways like starting a new job or moving to a new town or city. This means something different for everyone.
Whether you’re starting new in the smallest (or biggest) of ways, there are a few things you can do to make sure you set yourself up for success in the new year.
And truthfully, none of these things are really THAT hard to do!
If you just take these things into consideration as we enter the new year, you’ll find yourself on top of your game and less stressed in the long run.
So, without further hesitation, here are some ways you can set yourself up for success, and quite frankly, get your shit together this new year.
Set A Monthly Budget For Yourself
One of the best ways to set yourself up for success is to do so financially. At the start of the year, sit down and give yourself a monthly budget. You can do so by listing out your monthly income versus your monthly bills, then see how much you have left over and split it up with a percentage you’d like going into savings, and a percentage to allow yourself to spend each month.
At the turn of the year, some banks will offer up a printable spending report from the last 12 months, which will allow you to see an itemized list of where you spent your money, and how much you spent on particular things such as food, bills, shopping, insurance, etc.
Seeing an itemized list like this can also help you to reevaluate where your money went, and see where you can cut back. Perhaps you have some monthly subscriptions that you no longer need, or maybe you spent too much money on going out to eat, it’s much easier to evaluate your finances when everything is laid out right in front of you.
Put Together A Menu Of Healthy Foods
If your big goal for the new year is to start eating healthier, you can hit the ground running by creating yourself a menu of healthy foods and recipes. Sure, any of us can say we want to or are going to eat healthier, but do we really know where to begin?
There are tons of great recipes and healthy eating tips all over the internet, from Pinterest to food blogs to recipe websites and more – just make sure you’re getting reliable information!
Once you have your list of healthy foods and recipes, you can keep them in a folder or binder. Then, at the start of each week, you can pick out what meals you want to make for the week. Knowing ahead of time will even help you to be able to meal prep, giving you more time to take care of anything else you need to take care of throughout the week, instead of spending extra time in front of the stove or oven.
Reevaluate Your Morning/Evening Routines
How you start and end the day is actually so important. You always want to end your day in a way that you can start your next day off on the right foot.
To do that, you may want to sit down and reevaluate your evening and morning routines. How do you wind down at the end of the day? Do you lay your outfit out for the next day and enjoy a nice shower and skincare routine? Or do you leave everything for the morning, and then get real reckless and drink lots of caffeine right before bed? Obviously, we want to be doing the former to make our mornings easier.
The more you can take off your morning plate and prepare the night before, the better. That way when it comes time to wake up in the morning, you won’t find yourself rushing to get out the door – you may even be able to catch a couple extra minutes of sleep, or find time to make yourself a nutritional breakfast in the morning.
Additionally, making sure you get a good night’s rest is an important factor in setting yourself up for success the next day, a tired, cranky person is likely to be a unproductive person.
Keep A Planner (And Stick With It Longer Than A Week)
Having a planner that you can keep track of any important dates and events is such an easy way to keep yourself on top of things in the new year. I know so many of us get excited to grab ourselves a new planner for the new year, only to forget about it a week or so later – this year, don’t do that!
You’d be surprised how more together you will feel knowing that you have everything you need to keep track of right at your fingertips – whether that be in a traditional, paper planner or a digital one right on your phone.
Knowing when you have upcoming doctors appointments, birthdays, work events, work deadlines and more can help you avoid the stress in the long run, and it can help you avoid a birthday or work deadline sneaking up on you, causing you to rush to get things done in time.
You can also use these planners to keep track of to-do lists. Sit down at the beginning of each week, maybe right before prepping your meals, and make yourself a to-do list of things you want to (or need to) get done that week, and put it right in your planner during the time you plan to get those things done. Having an agenda for yourself can help you to stay on track, and even avoid distractions.
Make Sure That You Set Aside Time For Yourself
While it’s important to be productive, it’s also equally important to be able to set aside some time for yourself. Without that time for yourself, you’ll likely become burnt out faster, which in turn will hurt your productivity.
Having time for yourself can look like a lot of things, and you can use that time for anything you want! Use it to work out, use it to meditate, to enjoy a nice long skincare routine, to curl up on the couch and watch a movie.
No one is made to be on the go 24/7, that is how we run ourselves into the ground. So, having time to ourselves to be able to relax and recharge is just as important as any time you set aside to do certain tasks.
Make Goals For Yourself
You can tell yourself you’re going to be successful in the new year all you want, but what success are you really achieving if you don’t set goals for yourself?
There’s no one way to be successful. As a matter of fact, success can look like many different things. It can look like losing 20 pounds, like making a certain amount of money, like being able to afford a house, like launching a business. There’s many different ways to find success – both big and small.
As we enter the new year, make a list of goals for yourself, and when you want to achieve them by. For example, if your goal is to save up $10,000 in the next year make yourself a progress report of where you want to be each month in terms of reaching that goal.
Seeing your goals listed out in front of you will help you to motivate yourself to make things happen throughout the year, especially if you know that a deadline for said goals is quickly approaching.
Leave The Things That Don’t Make You Happy Behind
We all have things in our life that don’t make us happy, maybe that’s certain people that we find put us in bad moods, or jobs that ultimately just hurt us mentally (or perhaps physically if your job is manual labor) to the point of no return. If you have the opportunity to, leave these things behind in the upcoming year.
If there’s a person who just drains you mentally, start to pull yourself back from that person to protect yourself. Or when it comes to your job, which we know is a hard one to swallow because we need to make money, start the job search to see if there is an opportunity for you to move on elsewhere – truly, opportunities pop up when you least expect them.
Use this upcoming year to focus on yourself.
Hopefully these tips will help you to find success in the new year. Even if you just do one thing every day that will get you closer to your goal, you’re doing more than you did the day before!