Set Yourself Up For Success in the New Year

As established, I’m a sucker for a January reset. I suspect that most coaches feel the same way – it’s like OUR holiday. I like marking transitions with something that feels tangible (fireworks are great for this). It helps me stop and take in the change, something I’m not great at without a little help (fireworks preferred). 

And, I usually decide I’m going to change all the things and have a great first week of January, then fall right back into old patterns about one week in. My mistake is changing everything at once, and I’d love to help you not fall prey to the same instinct. 

If you’re a people-pleasing overachiever, like so many of us are, you’re going to be extra prone to trying to change too many things at once. It’s part of our need to fix everything, including ourselves. Don’t do this. 

So let me help you (and let’s be honest, myself) and set up a new year reset that’s reasonable as well as successful. I’ll be posting ways to do this over the month of January. 

Let’s ease in with a temperature check. Sit with yourself and ask: “how am I entering this year?” Are you rested and full of energy? Excited about what’s to come? Or exhausted, burned out, and crabby? Picture the smiley/frowny face pain scale they show you when you’re at the doctor’s office and truly check in with yourself. Where are you on the scale? 

If you picked a smiley face with any hint of a smile, that’s a green light for you to spend some time setting goals, boundaries, and planning big things for the year. 

If you’re in the mid-range of RBF smirks, yellow light. Set realistic expectations and goals, smaller ones that you can get some easy wins with. If you overload your new year with all the things, you’ll crash and burn. 

And if you’re in frowny face through agony, stop. Take some deep breaths. It’s probably not the time to reset anything or make big plans. Instead, think about one thing you can take off your plate or one boundary you can set to give yourself space. Be gentle and go slow. 

Now that you’ve taken your temperature, you can start leveraging this new year in a way that’s going to work best for you.