January is probably the most exciting time of the year. The New Year usually comes with high hopes. Most people wait for January to make a fresh start and set life goals.
Although we do not have to wait until the new year to transform our lives, a lot of people see this period of the year as the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter. In today’s post, I will share 25 things to do in January to start a new life and make the most out of the year to come.
1. Do a Life Audit
January is a great time to do a life audit. A life audit will help you reflect on your life and identify the gaps between your current and dream life.
The Wheel of Life is my favourite tool for doing a life audit. This tool will help you evaluate the 8 main areas of your life to identify the changes you need to make to improve your overall life satisfaction.
The Wheel is divided into the following sections:
- Health and overall Well-being
- Personality, Character & Self-discovery
- Relationships & Connections
- Career / Business & Finances
- Quality of Life (aka Lifestyle)
Here is what it looks like:
- To do this exercise, rate each dimension on a scale of 0 (not satisfied at all) to 10 (very satisfied).
- The purpose of this exercise is not to beat yourself up but to be honest with yourself and reflect on your areas of improvement.
- For each area of the wheel, think about why you did not grade it a 10/10.
- What would it take to be entirely satisfied by this dimension?
- This exercise should help you define the goals to set for the 12 months to come.
2. Define Personal Goals
The second thing on this list is a no-brainer: setting new personal goals. Setting new goals will give you a clearer vision of what you want to accomplish during the year. Having your goals in mind will also motivate you to keep going even when life gets in the way. One mistake a lot of people make when goal-setting is not defining clear goals. You will need actually to create a plan around your goals. And to be able to do it, you need to define SMART goals.
As you probably already know, SMART stands for:
- Specific goals: Set specific goals and narrow them down to simplify planning.
- Measurable goals: Set measurable goals to be able to track your progress.
- Attainable goals: Define attainable goals and make sure you can reach them in a reasonable amount of time.
- Realistic goals: Set realistic goals that support a broader vision of your ideal life.
- Time-bound goals: Define time-bound goals with a clear deadline to stay motivated and make yourself accountable.
If you want to start a new life, you will have to define additional goals and again create plans around them.
No matter the goals you decide to set for the new year, make sure you do not set too many so you stick to them. Setting too many goals will make it impossible to keep up with them, and you will probably fail at achieving most of them, which will be highly discouraging.
No matter what you decide to change in your life, defining a maximum of 3 goals per dimension will help you create a plan you will be able to stick to. There is no need to rush. You will have time to achieve the rest of your goals later in the year.
3. Focus on Yourself
To make a fresh start and improve your life, you need to understand the importance of taking care of yourself and making yourself your number 1 priority. No, focusing on yourself is not selfish.
It is necessary to live a well-balanced life and make sure you create a life you love. Focusing on yourself means checking in with yourself and planning rest time. No matter your goals and how busy you are, you will not be able to stay motivated and productive in the long run if you burn yourself out.
However, focusing on yourself means more than just lazy Sunday mornings. It also implies learning how to say “no” when necessary. You have set goals and created a plan around them. But to make it work, you need to keep it in mind and say “no” to everything that does not support it or makes you happy. Becoming your priority will help you protect your well-being and increase your life satisfaction.
4. Break Bad Habits
Breaking bad habits is just as important as implementing new habits that will support your goals. Your bad habits can seriously slow you down when it comes to transforming your life. Breaking bad habits is hard because habits are a direct reaction to the cues from our environment. To break bad habits, you will most likely have to make tweaks to your environment to make these cues disappear. Bad habits are mostly unconscious, and following them feels good because they bring us a weird form of comfort.
This is the reason why breaking them can be so hard. The good news is that making small changes to your environment can considerably help you break these bad habits. Do you struggle with your new/bad habits?
5. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Stepping out of your comfort zone will help you considerably change your life. Think about it…
If you are not satisfied with your life, it is probably because you have been comfortable for too long. Getting uncomfortable is the only way to grow.
Taking calculated risks will help you transform your life fast. An easy way to do so is to plan at least one activity that will make you step out of your comfort zone every month. You will quickly realise how fast your life will change.
6. Implement a Morning and Night routine
Implementing a morning and night routine is a great way to give your life a new direction. Routines, when followed with assiduity, compound and create great changes in our lives. Implementing a morning routine is probably the best thing you can do to boost your productivity, get things done, and achieve your goals. Starting to work on your personal goals before getting to work is key to ensuring you stay consistent even when your schedule is busy. A morning routine will help you start the day on the right foot and stay focused on your goals.
The second best routine you can implement is a night routine. Following a night routine will help you unwind after work and check in with yourself. A night routine is also a great opportunity to take time for yourself, practice self-care, and set yourself up for a good night’s sleep. These two routines will help you structure your life to ensure you make every day count.
7. Follow a New Self-Care Routine
Self-care is important to unwind and stay sane. If life is busy and you struggle to get out of bed every morning, you will benefit from implementing a self-care routine. A lot of people think that self-care is only about taking hot baths, doing hair masks, and getting your nails done. But there is so much more to that!
Self-care is, according to Oxford languages: “The act of caring for yourself, for example, by eating and sleeping well, taking exercise and getting help so that you do not become ill.“
This definition is pretty broad and covers a lot of different activities. Any activity that is meant to improve your general well-being and protect your physical and mental health can be considered self-care. Self-care will help you achieve balance in life, rest, take care of yourself, and grow as a person.
Engaging in self-care activities such as reading, meditating, or journaling can help you unwind and relieve stress. If you are serious about changing your life and making a fresh start, the months to come will be challenging. Finding activities that help you unwind and recenter yourself will help you stay consistent in the long run.
8. Change Your Eating Habits
Another simple way to start fresh is by changing your eating habits.
This might seem hard at first, but the good news is that apps are nowadays making it super easy to change our food habits.
What we feed our bodies is important. Food is our fuel, and we often do not realise how unhealthy some of our eating habits can be.
9. Give Meal Plan/Prep a Try
This is another habit that can help you make smarter choices when it comes to food. Cooking can be a real waste of time when you don’t know what to cook and spend hours looking for recipes online.
However, cooking all your meals will help you make healthier choices. And it will also save you a ton of money as well!
If you want to be more organised and have set fitness goals, you should give meal planning a try. Planning all your meals for the week in advance will help you know exactly what to cook, buy only the ingredients you need, and avoid food waste.
READ MORE: 7 Healthy Eating Habits to Adopt
If you want to get organised and have your diet under control, you can also try meal prep. I understand that this is not for everyone because it requires a lot of organisation. If you decide to meal prep, you will have to cook all your meals for the week (at least 21 meals if we consider breakfast, lunch, and dinner) on the same day. You will then be ready for the week.
If meal prepping sounds too extreme for you, try at least to meal plan and prepare all your recipes for the week in advance. This simple tip will help you save a lot of time!
10. Create a Workout Plan
Creating a new workout plan is another step to start fresh. No matter your goals, you should incorporate workouts into your routines. We all need to stay active to stay healthy.
Creating your workout plan and sticking to it will help you relieve anxiety and make you feel much more energised, which will help you achieve your long-term and short-term goals.
If you are not used to working out and do not know where to start, I recommend Moving with Nicole on YouTube – she has amazing yoga & Pilates workouts for all abilities.
11. Be Kind to Your Mind
Taking care of your mental health is important when you try to change your life. Some days will be harder than others. What will make all the difference between your failure and success is your ability to show up even when you don’t feel like it.
Staying consistent requires staying motivated, which will be extremely hard if you feel overwhelmed. If you regularly feel stressed and fear failure, many habits can help you overcome that.
Meditating with Headspace, journaling, and reading can help you overcome self-doubt.
12. Make Sleep Your Priority
Improving your sleep quality will considerably improve your overall life. You cannot get things done if you always feel exhausted and struggle to stay awake. Sleeping enough every night will give you the energy to move mountains. “Enough” does not mean the same thing for everyone. Some people only need 6-7 hours to feel energised in the morning, while others might need 9 hours. Finding what works best for you and sticking to your sleeping schedule (weekends included!) will help you improve your overall health and life.
Simple tips can help you improve sleep quality:
- Avoid screens at least one hour before going to bed
- Avoid coffee after 5 pm
- Take a hot bath
- Read for at least 20 minutes before going to bed
READ MORE: Tips for getting a good night’s sleep
13. Get Organised
Getting organised is another way to start fresh in January. If you want to get seriously organised and find balance in life, you should give time-blocking a try. When you time-block, you divide your days into blocks and allocate time for the tasks you want to complete. Time-blocking will help you make time for everything that matters to you despite a hectic work schedule.
Time-blocking is easier with a digital planner since it is super easy to make recurring blocks. If you want to try time-blocking, Google Calendar is a must. Time-blocking with Google Calendar is what helped me find a balance between my social life, full-time job, College, and this blog.
14. Declutter Your Space
Decluttering your space is a great way to make a fresh start in life. Our environment has a huge impact on our habits and behaviours. Our behaviours are direct responses to the cues we are exposed to in our environment. If you want to change your life, you need to make changes to your environment (home) as well.
Decluttering gives us great accomplishment and relief because physical clutter often turns into mental chaos. Decluttering your space will remove all unnecessary distractions from your sight, which will help you focus on what needs to get done.
15. Deep Clean Your Space
Deep cleaning of your home will help you take a fresh start in life because cleaning has the same benefits as decluttering. Implementing a cleaning schedule will also be easier once you have fully cleaned your house. And having a cleaning schedule will greatly reduce the amount of time you spend cleaning every week. This will be a super important factor to help you focus on your goals. Sticking to your schedule will make you save hours every week, and you will be able to dedicate these precious hours to work on your goals instead.
READ MORE: 6 Ways to Simplify Your Cleaning Routine
16. Rethink Your Space
This is another step to help you make your environment work for you instead of against you. And as already discussed, it is particularly important when trying to implement new habits and break bad habits. To make new habits stick, you need to decrease the number of steps between you and your new habits. Simply put, this means that if you want to work out more, you need to make it easier to stick to this habit so you stick to it even when having a bad day. You can do so by, for instance:
- Having a dedicated space to work out at home
- Buying some fitness equipment
- Finding a fitness club close to your house or work
- Separating your gym clothes from the rest of your wardrobe
- Prepare your gym clothes every night before going to bed
When it comes to bad habits, you should try to adapt your environment to make the cues of your bad habits invisible so they are easier to break. If you want to stop smoking, you can increase the steps between you and this bad habit by removing all the ashtrays from your house and going outside every time you want to smoke. This will make this habit harder to follow and easier to break because every time you want to smoke, you will have to:
- Get dressed if you are already in your pyjamas
- Put shoes on
- Put a coat on and take an umbrella if it rains
- Grab your phone
- Take your cigarettes and lighter
- Find your keys
- Lock the door
- Go outside and probably get cold
- Get back inside
- Remove your coat and shoes
- Put back your pyjamas
READ MORE: Habit Stacking 101
Adapting your environment after setting new goals will help you achieve them.
17. Declutter and Organise Your Wardrobe
Decluttering your wardrobe is an important step to making a fresh start. This simple step will also help you save a lot of time in the morning/evening when choosing what to wear. We all have plenty of clothes we do not wear sitting in our wardrobes. Going through every item from your wardrobe and deciding whether you want to keep it, sell it, or donate it will help you redefine your style and make sure you only keep clothes that suit you.
18. Sort Your Makeup and Skincare
Another thing you can do in January to make a fresh start is sort your makeup and skincare products. Indeed, doing so at least once a year is important for many reasons.
Firstly, it helps maintain the effectiveness of these products by ensuring they haven’t expired, as expired products may lead to skin irritation. Regularly reviewing and organising your collection also allows you to identify products you no longer use or need, creating space and minimising clutter.
Additionally, organising your makeup and skincare items enables you to take stock of what you have, helping you avoid unnecessary purchases and save money. Finally, it allows you to prioritise products based on your current skincare needs, ensuring your routine is tailored to address specific concerns.
19. Try Out New Apps
There are nowadays so many apps that no matter the goal you have set, there is an app to help you achieve it. Leveraging apps can make the difference between achieving your goals and failing. Download 2-3 apps per goal and try them out to choose your favourite.
20. Organise Your Laptop/Phone and Paper Clutter
Organising your laptop and phone will also help you make a fresh start. This is particularly true if you want to be more organised and save time. Organising your files and putting a system in place will help you save a lot of time when looking for things. Once you have sorted through your digital clutter and organised everything, it is time to make back-ups of your files!
And why not download a password manager to look for weak or compromised passwords and store all your passwords? If you use the same password for several sites because you’re terrible at remembering your credentials, it is time for you to download a password manager.
Another thing you should consider to be more organised and start fresh is to go through all your paper clutter. Sort every sheet of paper and decide what to keep under this format, what to scan, and what to throw away. Having all your documents sorted out will help you save a lot of time when looking for an important document!
READ MORE: 7 Ways to Simplify Your Digital Space & Gadgets
21. Clean Your Mailbox
Now, this is something that can be very time-consuming, but that is also very necessary if you want to start the new year off on the right foot: clean your mailbox(es). We tend to subscribe to a lot of newsletters and end up not opening most of the emails we receive. Swiping left to delete an email only takes a few seconds, but doing it over and over again is a real waste of time.
Take a few minutes to unsubscribe from all the newsletters you do not read, create folders to organise the emails you want to keep, and delete everything else. Receiving less junk mail will also help you save money by avoiding impulse purchases. It’s a win-win, so taking a few minutes to clean your mailbox is something to consider.
22. Find New Podcasts or Books
Podcasts and books have considerably transformed my life. If you want to turn your life around, you will need to operate a mindset shift. And there is no better way to do it than by listening to motivating podcasts every day and reading self-help books.
Changing your mindset is mandatory to transform your life. Listening to a podcast or reading a book while commuting is a great way to expand your vision of the world and stay focused on creating a new life.
23. Start a New Hobby
Starting a new hobby will help you step out of your comfort zone, meet new people, and develop new skills. if you want to reinvent yourself, you will have to start doing new things, so looking for a new hobby seems like a no-brainer.
This is also the perfect opportunity to spend more time outside. If you work indoors, chances are that you spend very little time outside every day. Research shows that spending time in nature has many benefits for our physical and mental health. No matter your goals, you should aim to spend at least 120 minutes outside (in a calm environment) every day. Doing so will considerably improve your mental and physical health.
READ MORE: 5 Ways to Connect with Nature
24. Reflect on Your Personal Finance Strategy
Having your finances under control is key to improving your life. The first step to start fresh is to create a new budget. Listing all your expenses will help you better understand where your money is going and identify possible savings. Listing all your debt (if you have any) and calculating your net worth will help you better understand your financial health. To calculate your net worth, add all your assets and subtract all your debt. Your net worth will be a great indicator of the state of your finances.
READ MORE: Are your finances organised? | 6 Ways to Simplify Your Finances | How to ensure you are ready to face your finances
25. Create a New Stream of Income
If you only have one source of income, starting a side hustle should be your number one mission for the New Year! Having an additional source of income will give you more stability and help you achieve financial security. If you are trying to pay off debt, having an additional source of income and allocating the money to your debt payoff will help you speed up the process!
READ MORE: Small Businesses You Can Start Today | Are You Starting A Business? Here Are Some Quick Tips | 7 Secrets To Building A Solid Foundation For Your New Business
Ready to step into a brand new you? Let’s create a special roadmap to your dream self.
- What does she look like? (Physical appearance, style)
- How does she dress on a typical day?
- What does she like?
- What doesn’t she like?
- What is her behaviour like in different situations?
- (Social interactions. demeanour)
- How does she prefer to be treated by others? (Expectations from relationships)
- How does she treat people around her? (Interpersonal relationships. kindness)
- What does her daily routine entail? (Activities. schedule)
- At what time does she usually go to bed? (Sleeping habits)
- When does she wake up in the morning? (Morning routine)
- What are her hobbies and interests? (Leisure activities)
- What is her profession or occupation? (Career, job responsibilities)
- What are her long-term goals and aspirations? (Career ambitions. personal achievements)
- How does she handle stress or challenges? (Coping mechanisms, problem-solving approach)
- What type of books does she enjoy? (Cultural preferences)
- How does she maintain her physical and mental well-being? (Health and self-care routines)
- Does she have any specific dietary preferences or restrictions? (Food choices)
- Who are her closest friends? And what is her relationship like with them? (Friendship dynamics)
- How does she navigate conflicts or disagreements? (Communication style, conflict resolution)
- What values and principles guide her decision-making? (Personal ethics)
- How does she spend her leisure time on weekends? (Weekend activities. relaxation methods)
Final Thoughts
Every day is a great day to make a fresh start. There is no need to wait until January 1st to transform your life, even though most people wait for it to set goals and implement new habits.
Turning your life around seems impossible when you do not know where to start. The good news is that you can become a whole new person in just a few months. All it takes is getting access to the right information, taking strategic actions, and being consistent.
Feel free to sign up to my Sunday Morning Letters HERE! It's like having a cup of tea and a chat with me on Sunday mornings - a strong dose of inspiration and encouragement to help you Curate & Live a Well-Designed Life; Consciously, Intentionally & Wholeheartedly. I want you to live your life fully - each day, less on autopilot and more on purpose - living a life of meaning ♡
