With a new year comes a new start. This is an opportunity to reflect on your life, both personally and professionally, and make any necessary changes. Maybe you don’t need to make drastic changes, but taking the time to honestly assess your current situation in life can be beneficial. Here are five ways to help you reset and start the year off right.
1. Reset Your Focus
Many people start the year off making New Year’s resolutions, but after a few weeks, most have already broken their promises to themselves. Why is that? All too often it is due to a lack of focus.
If you have resolved to lose weight, then you are going to have to maintain focus on that goal every day by consciously deciding to eat healthy foods and commit to exercising regularly. Likewise, if you want to reach higher career goals, strengthen your marriage, or be a better parent, it is going to take a concerted effort on your part to not get bogged down in the day to day minutia, and maintain attention on your goal.
2. Surround Yourself With Positive People
You have probably heard before that the people you surround yourself with will impact your life. Those people can either lift you up or bring you down. Whether it is regarding your career or personal life, make a choice to not participate or get bogged down by the unconstructiveness of negative people. Ensure that your circle of influence is comprised of positive, productive people that will drive you to do better.
3. Change Your Outlook
There are some things that you can control in life and other things that you cannot. It does no good to obsess over the things that you have unequivocally no control over.
So what can you do if you have absolutely no way to change your situation? Change your outlook. Many experts claim that only 10% of your life is made up of the events that are actually happening to you and around you. The other 90% of your life is how you perceive it and manage situations - and this is the part you can control.
4. Maintain Balance Between Work And Family Life
Do you find yourself working long hours and feeling exhausted every day? Did you miss you child’s last five school activities? Being dedicated to your job, striving to move up the ladder, and having a strong work ethic are good things. But they aren’t the only things, and certainly not the most important things in life.
There is no price that you can put on spending time with your family and being there to watch your daughter make her first soccer goal or your son hit his first home run.
5. Map Out Your Plan
Write down your goals for the year. Talk about your goals with an accountability partner - this can be your spouse, a friend, or co-worker - who can be there throughout the year to make sure you are staying on track with those goals.
Instead of just thinking about what you want to do or the goals that you want to reach, writing them down and telling someone else not only makes them more tangible, but also a scientifically proven fact that you are more likely to reach them. While it can be a bit intimidating to actually commit to your goals in this way, you are actually more likely to reach them if you know someone else is going to be following up with you and cheering you on along the way.