How To Slay The New Year

Happy New Year! 2017 is officially here. I hope you had a great New Years Eve, whether you were partying or just relaxing at home with your family.

Every year we create goals for our life and decide to make small (or big) changes but how do you do them? To achieve your goals you need a game plan. Today I'm going to give you some tips on how to slay the new year and achieve your goals.

Discipline

Without discipline, achieving your new years "resolutions" or goals which is what I prefer to call them, it's very difficult. Every year you strive for better health, right? Well I'm pretty sure only a small percentage of people actually reach it due to lack of discipline. We want to start eating better but we haven't learnt how to discipline ourselves and stop ourselves from reaching for that chocolate bar we tried to hide away. We start the year by going to the gym everyday during the month of January but February starts and it just doesn't happen anymore. Reason for that? Excuses. We're always looking for a reason not to do something (Guilty) and we don't stand our ground.

Find a way to discipline yourself, no matter what the goal may be. If you're trying to use your phone less and be more in the moment, set an alarm for a certain time and make sure to switch it off for a couple of hours. If it's to be more healthy, start a journal and track what you're eating, how much and what you're drinking etc. If your goal is to stop swearing so much, make a jar and put a pound in every-time you cuss. Whatever it may be, find a good way to discipline yourself.

Commitment 

Kind of similar to the first tip but not entirely. How determined are you to reach your goal? What made you decide to do it? What are you going to get out if it at the end? When you're trying to reach a goal, it requires commitment. You need to WANT to reach it. I have found that one of the best ways to stay committed to a goal is to have it written out in front of you. Whether it be on a post it note on your fridge, on a poster in your room, the top of your notifications on your phone or in some kind of journal. If you write down what you're trying to achieve, why you want to achieve it and the benefits of getting there, it should motivate you to try harder everyday. Don't give up when things get tough, keep going!

Buy a Planner/Journal

I have briefly mentioned this one already but buy yourself some kind of Journal, Diary, Planner etc. It will keep your life in order. Everyday, write tasks to do and smaller goals to help you achieve bigger ones, I don't know what it is but for me personally, if I visually see the long list of things I need to do, I get things done quicker. I may not get them all done in the same day or space of time, but things get completed much quicker than if I were to go by memory. This is the best time to buy your planner. They'll be selling them everywhere and there are some really pretty ones out there from as little as £1.

Have a theme for the Year

This is something that I have only been doing since the end of 2015, so it's fairly recent to me but it has been so beneficial. Last year I decided to have a theme for the year, after reading a blog post (I will link the post if I ever find it again). I decided that my theme was going to be self love. This year my theme is giving. What a theme does is that it provides you with a focus. Last year my focus was that by the end of the year I would have had more confidence and love for myself than I began with at the start of the year. This year my aim is to have shown my appreciation to friends and family. By giving yourself a theme for the year, it allows you to achieve something specific.

Examples of themes you can choose:

Confidence
Change
Positivity
Spontaneity
Friendship
Courage
Renewal

Have smaller goals to reach bigger ones

Again, I have briefly mentioned this. This post is kind of like a full circle I suppose. Make small goals that will help you to reach the bigger one. You can't just think OK I want to be healthier and leave it at that, or I want to be confident. Those are way too broad to just go with. The best way to do it is to make small goals that will all lead up to those bigger ones. So if you want to be healthier, make a goal of yours to do the squat challenge everyday for one month or become vegan for one month to try out different diets, I don't know. Do things that will eventually make you a healthy person. If you want to be confident, everyday try and do one thing that is out of your comfort zone, decided to talk to at least one new person everyday etc.

Take lots of Pictures

Taking pictures throughout the year can not only show your journey and progress but it's something to look back on at the end. If you travel to a new place, try a new activity, manage to drag yourself to the gym, take lots of pictures. You can see how far you've come and what sort of year you have had. Sometimes we forget some of the amazing things we see and do. It's hard to remember 365 days worth of things. By taking lots of pictures, we will never forget the amazing days we have in the year.

Make the most of it

It's a new year. That means a new beginning and a fresh start. Don't go into a new year holding a grudge of what happened between you and another person YEARS ago or even DAYS ago. We can choose to love or we can choose to hate. We have enough hate in the world as it is so you choose the right answer. Make the most of everyday you have. God has given us another year, another month, week, day, minute, second of breath. Make the most of what you have.

Thanks for reading,

Have a great day x