There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
As we embark on a New Year. I wanted to share my process of how to prepare for a New Year with you. As most of you would have noticed in the weeks and final days leading up to the end of the year. I was absent from social media, I wasn’t taking a social media detox. I was actually taking this time to check in with myself and was preparing for the New Year.
How To Prepare For A New Year
Deep Clean
Throughout the year, I periodically go thru my things and clean out what I no longer want, use, and or need. However, in December I do a deep clean. I make a list of every room in my house and slowly walk through each room. I write down what all I have to go thru, clean out, and or fix.
Once I’ve completed doing a walk through of the entire house. I pull out my planner and set aside time each week to dedicate to each room before the end of the year. I also take this time to tweak My Weekly Cleaning Routine. Adding and removing things from my routine to ensure that I have a clean home throughout the week.
When I do a deep clean, I start by going through my things and cleaning out what no longer serves me. If you’ve seen Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix then you know what I’m talking about. A clean home is a happy home.
After, I’ve cleaned out the things that no longer serve me. I organize the remaining items that I’ve decided to keep. Next, I put the items I’ve cleaned out into one of three piles: trash, donate, and or sell. I throw away the things that need to be trashed. Donate items that are still in good condition to charity. Then sell anything of value.
I wrap up my deep clean by fixing any broken items on my list. If they can’t be fixed then I make sure to replace them. For example, I needed to repot some plants because they were getting too big for the pots that they were in. Also, I put a fresh coat of paint on the front door to my house.
If you need to do more than a deep clean. I’m talking about a complete overhaul of everything that you own. I suggest you read my blog post on How To Declutter.
Reflect Often
At the end of the year, I like to isolate myself a bit by spending time alone to reflect. Now when I say reflect, I don’t mean by reliving the past for a couple of minutes. What I mean by reflect, is really take the time to sit, marinate, and reflect on the experiences you had in the past year. Some questions that I ask myself include,
What were my successes?
Where did I fail?
What lessons did I learn?
How do I feel?
What am I grateful for?
It’s during these times of reflection that I have come to the most amazing revelations about my life and insight into who I am as a person. For only in the end do you understand the meaning.
Set Goals
I am not a fan of New Year Resolutions. By definition a New Year’s Resolution is a tradition at the beginning of the year in which a person resolves to continue good practices, change an undesired trait or behavior, accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve their life. While these are all great things to strive for, I find them to be very vague. So instead of New Years Resolutions, I always set goals for myself. The difference between the two, is that I set goals for myself year round. Not just at the beginning of the year. I separate my goals into five categories: Home, Health, Wealth, Career, and Travel.
Home
Since I’m a home owner, any goals that I have in regards to my home fall in this category. This could be anything from making a purchase for my home be it home decor, an appliance and or starting a home improvement project.
Health
Last year, my health goals centered on challenging myself in the gym. By being able to do something I’ve never done before. However, this year I want to focus not only on challenging myself in the gym. But by changing some of my behaviors in order to better my health. For example, making sure that I am getting enough sleep at night.
Wealth
As I’ve gotten older, my finances have become more and more of a priority. With that said, my wealth goals entail how I manage my money. I plan for the present, learn from past financial mistakes, and save for the future.
Career
In the past, my career goals where to get promoted, anticipate my next bonus and or look forward to a pay raise. However, since I’ve been self employed for two years now. My career goals look slightly different. Now I focus on increasing my income, improving technical skills, and attending networking events.
Travel
This has to be my favorite category to set goals for. Depending on what all I have going on. I always plan a couple of trips throughout the year to look forward to. Last year, I went to Puerto Rico for my birthday. You know what they say, All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.
If you want to know more about how I set my goals. I go more into detail on goal setting in this blog post: How To Set and Achieve Your Goals. This concludes my process of how to prepare for a New Year. Although New Year’s has passed. You can still implement some of these tips to help make this the best year ever.
I filmed a video on my YouTube channel to compliment this blog post. I go over each of these steps on, how to prepare for a new year. Click the link below to watch.
Don’t forget to “Like” this video and “Subscribe” to my YouTube channel. So you can keep up with my latest videos. I upload new videos every Sunday & Thursday. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post, how to prepare for a new year. If you have any questions feel free to comment down below.
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