10 Things to Help You Prep for the New Year

lifestyle + travel Apr 03, 2021

The New Year always seems to sneak up so quickly that I usually end up waiting until the first few weeks of January to finally decide on a resolution, set goals, and get organized. Well, this year I’m trying to be a little more ahead of the game and get myself prepped and ready for a kick-ass new year before the ball drops, and I wanted to share with you some of the things I’m doing to get there over the last couple weeks of December.

New Year’s is a funny time because no matter how many resolutions we’ve broken in the past we still get this overwhelming sense of a fresh start year after year. It would be dumb not to take advantage of this natural boost of motivation and inspiration in order to cultivate powerful changes in your life.

BUT… the motivation and inspiration that builds with holiday spirit, twinkling lights, beautiful gatherings and moments of gratitude tends to plummet fairly quickly after the year has begun. The key to actually creating change or growth in your life in the new year is to really take the time to consider what your intentions are. If you throw together a last minute ‘resolution’ or you just pick a cliche weight loss goal, chances are you’re not going to stick to it for more than a few weeks. I’ve NEVER stayed committed to a new year’s resolution for more than a few months, I don’t know about you.

So, I’ve thought real hard this year about the power of intention and I’ve come up with 10 things that are fairly simple (some slightly time consuming, but totally worth it) that will help me, and YOU, get decluttered, re-centered, aligned and ready to take on our new goals. Without further ado, here are my top 10 things to help you prepare for the freshest start to 2019. Let’s do it!

1. UNFOLLOW & UNSUBSCRIBE

You already know what this means - I think we could all use a good old fashion EDIT to our media diet. Take 15-20 minutes to look at who you follow on social media and the content that you’re unconsciously consuming everyday and trim the fat - by that I mean get rid of the stuff that’s not serving you. If you see a friend, family member, celebrity, model, influencer, or politician posting on social media and it doesn’t lift you up, inspire you, make you laugh or bring some sort of real VALUE to your life then, you guessed it —> unfollow.

Your subconscious mind is so much more powerful than any conscious thoughts you have so you have to be very careful about the kind of messages and energy you’re feeding it just by simply glancing at your phone each day. Stop consuming anything that makes you feel negative.

Also, take a look at your email inbox and unsubscribe from any brands or websites you may have purchased from or subscribed to in the past that are now just taking up space in there every week. Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to delete 5,000 emails from Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret, StubHub, Uber, Groupon and whatever other companies are sending you things on the daily?! Unsub from that shit right now and get your inbox looking squeeky clean for the New Year.

I used a website called Unroll.Me and it only took me about 2 minutes to go through and unsubscribe from over 60 accounts. You just log in using your email and they instantly provide you a list of all your subscriptions and you can go through and click either ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘keep’ and voila! your inbox is organized! You might even find things that you didn’t know you were subscribed to - like the Dave Mathew’s Band website. Why? I have no clue.

Tip: If you live in Europe due to changes in data protection regulation the service is temporarily unavailable, so when it asks you if you live in the EU just select NO - it worked for me even though I currently live in Spain (but my permanent address is still in the US - I’m not sure how sophisticated their data tracking is but it’s worth a try).

2. DECLUTTER YOUR WORKSPACE

This could be the desk in your room, your home office, your work office, file cabinet, cubicle, or if you’re me - your dining room table that doubles as your personal workspace.

I’m not a scientist but I know for sure there are massive correlations between your external working environment and the internal state of your mind. If you sit down to work in a cluttered, dirty, messy, or just uninspiring space - you’re going to have to work twice as hard to keep your brain focused, creative, and on task. And in the New Year you want to sit down at your desk each day feeling like an absolute BOSS - so clean that shit up.

You could turn this into a fun opportunity to buy some cute new accessories for your desk that make you feel inspired and happy, like candles, an essential oil diffuser, a plant, a picture frame, some crystals, a quote of the day calendar, a new agenda orrrrr you could just simply recycle all the old crap you don’t need/use and neatly reorganize the space to feel fresh and simplistic.

3. DECIDE WHAT TO LET GO OF & WHAT TO MAKE MORE TIME FOR

Let Go:

Think about any habits, commitments or relationships in your life that are bringing you down, draining your energy or just no longer serving you and decide to let them go. This could be as simple as deciding not to scroll on social media before bed and as complicated as deciding to spend way less time with a negative friend or toxic family member.

Make Room:

Once you let go of some of the things that are weighing you down, you’ll have created space to focus more on things that are really important to you. Think about activities, people, and routines that you really want to cultivate and nurture in the new year. I highly suggest writing them down somewhere you can go back to them over and over again to remind yourself of what your priorities are and what you want to consciously spend more time on.

4. SHARE YOUR GRATITUDE

By now you know how powerful the practice of gratitude can be and the countless psychology studies that show that more gratitude leads to more happiness and success - but this particular tip is more specific than just thinking about gratitude or writing down some things you’re grateful for.

I actually want you to SHARE your gratitude during the holiday season. It could be in one big really meaningful way, or in loads of little ways, but expressing gratitude toward the people you love and appreciate is an amazing way to close off the year and prep your heart and mind for a new chapter.

Some ideas: Write a letter, make a phone call, send an email, give a small gift with a thoughtful note - just tell someone how they’ve impacted you or supported you this year and why you’re thankful to have them in your life. Think family, friends, neighbours, employees, coworkers, nurses, teachers, mentors, coaches anyone in your life who you feel grateful to have close to you.

5. PLAN SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU

Think about something you’ve been wanting to do or try but you’ve never quite gone for it because it makes you nervous or scared, but also excited! This tends to be the formula for growth - finding things that excite you and scare you (also known as desires outside your comfort zone) and leaning into them. Taking the leap is hard when it’s not planned, paid for and on the calendar so you’re going to eliminate all of those factors before the new year begins. Figure out what it is you want to do and GO BOOK IT.

Maybe it’s a tattoo, a course, a growth conference, a women’s march, an ancestry test, a mountain hike, a dance class, running a marathon, hiring a personal trainer or coach, going skydiving, or getting adult braces - whatever it is seriously just decide to commit and schedule it in.

6. HEALTH-IFY YOUR KITCHEN

The majority of people will have at least one New Year’s goal or aspiration surrounding their health and wellness, so the best way to get ahead of the game is to take advantage of the days off around Christmas and New Year’s and clean out any crap foods you no longer want to be tempted by. Go through your cupboards, pantry and fridge and toss some unhealthy dressings, salsas, snack foods, canned goods etc. (and by toss I mean donate anything unopened and chuck the rest)

The next step is the healthy grocery haul - go to the store and stock up on your favorite superfoods, fruits, veggies, smoothie ingredients and healthy snack options. You could also take the time to make sure you’re stocked up on protein powders, collagen, BCAA’s, mushroom coffee and anything else #health related that you order online.

7. SET A MONTHLY GOAL

Screw resolutions - who can commit to something for 365 days anyway? Not me. But we all want to start fresh and feel accomplished so instead of setting impossible yearly resolutions try setting monthly goals or intentions as you move through the year.

You may have seen me post on my Instagram stories several times sharing a photo of my monthly intentions that I write out and doodle in my notebook. At the start of nearly every month (sometimes I forget, let’s be real) I take 15 minutes to think about what I want to work on that month and write it down. It could be ways to be better at work or in your relationships or drinking more water, sticking to your workouts, going to bed earlier or calling your grandma every Sunday - it can be whatever you need in that moment.

The beautiful thing about monthly goals and intentions is that you only have to stick to them for 30 days and you’re a success! We so often feel like we’ve failed when we can’t stick to our resolutions and that feeling of failure brings down your vibe and lowers your motivation to try harder or try again. Of course some big goals or long-term things can carry over and repeat month to month, but this way what you’re trying to accomplish doesn’t seem so big and impossible.

8. ORGANIZE YOUR SMARTPHONE AND COMPUTER SCREENS

I just did this the other day and it felt SO GOOD. If you have 95 apps on your phone make different categories for them and divide them into folders like Banking, Travel, Social Media, Music etc. to clean up the look of your home screen.

If you have 5,000 photos in your camera roll go through and create some albums to organize them a bit and delete any old screenshots, recently deleted photos, and other useless crap clogging up the app.

I’m guilty of constantly having screen captures, photos, downloads, word documents, PDFs and other junk just floating on my computer desktop screen - so if that’s you too just do the same thing you did with your phone. Go through and delete any unnecessary items, drag loose documents into folders or store them somewhere else, go into your finder and delete the 500 random downloads you have taking up space and then empty the trash. *Crsshhhh*… that recycling sound it makes is so satisfying.

9. BOOK A TRIP

Once the busyness of work, responsibility, and ‘normal life’ sets back in after the holidays it becomes almost impossible to find the time or energy to sit down and plan a much needed getaway mid-year. We get so comfortable and caught up in our routines that we feel like there’s no time for anything else.

Well, traveling is one of the best ways to shake up your day to day, get outside of your normal surroundings, treat yourself, do different activities, connect with others (or yourself) and just reset. But when we get too busy it’s overwhelming and time consuming to plan out, so that’s why you need to book one trip right now before the new year begins.

This doesn’t have to be some crazy overseas backpacking trip or caribbean island destination (although that would be epic) it could just be as simple as a weekend road trip to another city with your partner, a girls weekend away with your besties, a spa day for some much needed self love and alone time - make it whatever fits your needs, lifestyle and budget but make sure it’s booked before the new year or else you’ll never get around to it. Plus it’ll give you something fun to look forward to!

Self care is so important, don’t overlook the power of putting yourself first and taking a little mini getaway.

10. CHOOSE YOUR WORD OF THE YEAR

Another simple way to reinvent the idea of a New Year’s resolution is to come up with a ‘word of the year.’ Basically the idea is to think about what your main goals, aspirations, and intentions are for the new year, what your focus is, who you want to be and how you want to show up as a better version of yourself and sum that up into a single word. Sounds kinda hard right? I’ll list 175 word ideas at the bottom of this post.

The power of having one single word is that it’s easy to remember, it’s easy to write down or speak out loud often, and it will serve as a constant reminder throughout the year of where you’re trying to go. When you get off track or lose sight of what your goals were all you have to do is come back to that one word and ask yourself, “How can I cultivate more _____ today?”

We’re all going to make mistakes, have setbacks, and get off course from our big goals and dreams throughout the year - that’s just life. So instead of beating yourself up or telling yourself you failed because you couldn’t stick to your resolution, you just come back to your word and focus on how you can work toward it in simple actions one day at a time.

175 ‘WORD OF THE YEAR’ IDEAS

Steady
Simplify
Valued
Trust
Immerse
Inspire
Bravery
Complete
Visible
Confidence
Radiant
Motivation
Loyalty
Feel
Gentleness
Healing
Home
Believe
Ease
Worth
Adapt
Emergence
Courage
Heard
Depth
Stability
Accomplished
Improve
Capable
Boldness
Fullness
Give
Wholehearted
Begin
Sacred
Adventure
Boundaries
Mindfulness
Space
Unconditional
Tend
Connection
Daring
Progress
Determination
Cherished
Love
Enlightened
Build
Prayer
Quiet
Vision
Communication
Reset
Abundance
Free
Dependable
Rebuild
Heart
Family
Gratitude
Service
Light
Slow
Bliss
Survivor
Travel
Explore
Softness
Cultivate
Self-Acceptance
Encourage
Fit
Authentic
Change
Wellness
Embrace
Patience
Tender
Available
Relax
Hope
Seek
Celebrate
Direction
Passion
Thankful
Truth
Transformation
Peace
Intention
Start
Reflection
Breathe
Delight
Better
Dedicated
Recovery
Express
Kindness
Present
Self-Care
Faith
Power
Forgiveness
Learn
Fearless
Potential
Renewal
Consistency
Receptivity
Unstoppable
Devotion
Tranquil
Dream
Journey
Uniqueness
Commitment
Yes
Thrive
Bright
Become
Rise
Unafraid
Calm
Grace
Listen
Friendship
Organized
Whole
Persistence
Aware
Body-Love
Honesty
Empower
Intuition
Joy
Compassion
Teach
Creativity
Growth
Glowing
Play
Grounded
Centered
Sparkle
Balance
Align
Motion
Challenged
Relationships
Nourish
Zen
Oneness
Focus
Integrity
Release
Distance
Expand
Support
Wise
Happiness
Foundation
Finish
Clarity
Spirituality
Forward
Blessed
Rest
Transparency
Open
Uplift
Soul
Stillness
Discover

(list from www.blessingmanifesting.com)