The New Year is rapidly approaching, and I want to make sure that you are having the best New Year possible today and all this week. I am announcing something special on Wednesday, and today I wanted to start this week of New Year content off right by sharing ten positive habits that I feel we (and I say we because I do not follow all these to a T) should implement in the New Year. You should always be looking to build positive habits, so I hope that this blog post will give you some ideas on habits to form. I do not expect you to follow every single habit, but this post is a good starting point if you want to think about habits you could start in the next few weeks.
1. Showing Gratitude For What You Have
We are a culture that continuously wants more. It is not necessarily completely our fault; we were born this way! We're taught that once we have one thing, we should always be trying to climb to get the next thing. We never stop and consider the many blessings around us. In the New Year, I want us to show more gratitude for what we already have before we start grabbing at things we do not.
Check in with yourself: do you have clothes on your back, food in your belly, a smartphone probably near your hand? You have so much more than you could ever want for yet you want more? I am not saying that we should not strive for more, but don’t let your many blessings pass you by this year.
2. Making Your Goals Known To Yourself And Others
If you have a goal, don’t make all your moves in silent! It is harder to let go of goals when everyone and their momma knows about them. So, share your goals with a group of close friends and family members. Get those people to help hold you accountable to your goals. Be picky about your goals, though, don’t wish for everything under the sun. Be picky and keep working at that goal in the New Year.
3. Journaling Your Thoughts And Feelings
Journaling is a great way to get your thoughts and feelings out there to something completely unbiased. The air and the paper you are writing on cannot judge you. Make it a habit to journal every few days in the New Year so that you can document your year and get out all the feels you have bottled up.
4. Reading Daily
I am not the best at reading daily, even with the added free time I have since I graduated with my Master’s in August. Reading daily can be an insurmountable challenge when you are in school fulltime, but it is only because we let it be. You do not have to read a million pages a night—you may not even truly read (audiobooks, anyone?) Break up the books that you read. Vow to read a few pages a night or a chapter or so. The more you pick up the habit of reading daily, the faster you will get at it. Daily reading is important, and it helps you destress. Why wouldn’t you want to make this a habit?
5. Keeping Promises That You Make To Yourself
We make SO many promises to ourselves daily. What if we held up our end of the bargain? When we make promises we do not keep, we train our brain not to take ourselves seriously. As much as I am saying this, I do the same thing to my brain. In the New Year, let’s strive to keep and be more selective about the promises that we make.
6. Dressing For Success Most Days
When we put thought and effort into the way that we look, we get many benefits from it. It is hard to dress up 24/7, but you should strive to get dressed up most days of the week. Since I have been working from home, I have fallen victim to wearing just anything, but we should be getting dressed up no matter where we work. In the New Year, I am vowing to be dressier and show up put together most days of the week.
7. Making A Concerted Effort To Meet New People
It is easy to and not to meet new people currently. You can be a complete shut-in and not talk to anyone, or you can meet a new person every minute of every hour you are online. The balancing act we are on right now is so weird. Instead of trying to be a shut-in, though, make more of an effort to get to know the people around you. You will be much happier that way.
8. Get The Right Amount Of Sleep Each Day
We are in a perpetually busy state. We use the “I am so busy” line to neglect the sleep we desperately need. Instead of cutting into the sleep we need, we should focus on being more productive throughout the day so that we can get an adequate amount of sleep at night. Don’t lose sleep just because you were not productive, get some shut-eye and try again in the morning. You cannot be your most productive on little sleep so pick the most important part of the equation—sleep.
9. Asking For Help When You Need It
Yes, I do believe in Googling something if you do not understand it, we could all benefit from trying before we ask. We should also know when it is time to ask for help from the people who know and love us. Try to help yourself, and when that does not work, ask for help. Your first instinct should not be to suffer quietly. People around you want to help you, but they cannot help until you ask them for what you need.
10. Getting A Head Start On Tasks Assigned
It is so easy to say, “if today is not the due date, then today is not the do date,” but that just causes unnecessary stress in your life. Instead of walking around in a perpetual state of stress, get a head start on the assignments that you have to do. Once you start and finish them early, you will feel much better, and you will not have that last-minute stress on your back.
Conclusion
The New Year is bound to be great if you start implementing just a few of these ten positive habits. We should all strive to be better people throughout the year, but the New Year fastly approaching is the perfect reason to start building new habits.
What habits do you hope to form in the New Year?
