On this day, the day they call Blue Monday, supposedly the most depressing day of the year, let’s think about the antidote. Make fresh, new goals (or re-do the old list, that also counts) because that’s the one thing you can control today. So let’s look at the tried and true, in no particular order of importance:
- Review and update your goals for 2023
- Book a holiday in the sun
- Leave that tired relationship behind
- Hire a life coach for help with changing the goals
- Book a massage or commit to regular sessions of them
- Start dating again
- Start a new fitness regime
- Book counselling (to help with deeper, emotional wounds)
- Get a new job or start your own business
- Learn something new (skill, language, start a new course)
The odds are many things on this list will be the same as last year. But we shouldn’t be down-hearted about that!
If we’re doing the same type of thinking again this year, it may be that we started but we didn’t get as much traction as we wanted; we lost heart, or we didn’t see much progress or it seemed, once you’d started, a bit futile. Maybe we didn’t start at all. Maybe we didn’t know where to start or the task seemed impossible to scale. However, just because these are back again, that doesn’t mean they were not important to you and not finishing them all does not make us a failure.
It means we have to calibrate and review what has gone on so that we can have something different in the future – and that makes you a success, in my view! The list is the start and enlisting some kind of help will show the universe your serious intention to make changes. Going a step further, it’s a good idea to have help keeping you accountable, re-modelling that plan more often than you would on your own and making course corrections where you need to. That’s where a coach comes in.
There may be some issues that get flagged up for deeper investigation once you start something on the list. Maybe those are things you were always curious about, but put off because… you thought you were selfish or too self-involved or you didn’t prioritise yourself sufficiently. You may find that now’s the time to review childhood, relationship or family issues, and that’s where a therapist or counsellor would be able to help on that journey.
So this really could be the year to really change your life. But be patient and kind to yourself – think carrot, not stick! Take the first step and decide… without punishing yourself, to keep going through the year. That way, resolutions become a part of the journey and not just a means to an end. Happy new year!