How to Start the New Year Off Right

How to Start The New Year Off Right
By Ursula Anderson, eHow Member

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

However the old year treated you, it’s always nice to look forward to improving on it in the new year. There are lots of good ways to go about it. Not that any particular date is necessarily a good time to change your life, but New Year’s Day seems to be a good, memorable starting point.

Instructions

Things You’ll Need:
• Good intentions.
• Paper and pencil (optional)
• Some self-knowledge

1. One of the best ways to start the new year is by surviving New Year’s Eve. Not drinking and driving is a good start; you should never do that anyway, but New Year’s Eve is an even more dangerous time to do it. Either don’t drink, or stay home and drink, or have a designated driver who won’t drink and can be trusted to drive carefully and defensively for the evening. Having a party at your house with all your friends, and making arrangements for everybody to surrender their keys at the door, with places for everybody to sleep, is a nearly ideal solution.
2. Some time before the new year begins, sit down with a pencil and paper, or just think deeply about what you would like to have changed about the year before. Did you have bad habits? Relationship problems? Decisions you regretted? Projects you left unfinished? Jot them down, then try to envision how you can avoid similar problems in the future. For instance, if you smoke or drink or gamble too much, make a concrete plan to cut down or quit these bad habits altogether, perhaps by joining a support group or talking to people who have already dealt with such challenges. Commit to working on relationship problems, by seeking professional help or by working it out between the two of you. Look over projects you may have left unfinished and decide whether you still want to finish them, and make plans to do the next step, or get rid of them. It’s okay to let go of something about which you no longer care. Sometimes it’s better that way.
3. Is there something you have always wanted to do, but never tried before? Throwing pots on a wheel? Traveling outside the country? Creating your own website? Continuing your education? Raising guppies? Do a little research on whatever it is. Starting something new, whether it works out or not, is a good way to make the new year an improvement over the last one. Even if you find that you don’t enjoy throwing pots or you flunk Algebra, you still put yourself out into the world and took a risk, and may have found something even more interesting through exploring new things. In any case, you woke up your mind and added a dimension to yourself when you tried something new.
4. Go through your address book. Is there anybody in there with whom you have had no contact in the past year? Did you want to, or is this a relationship better ended than renewed? The new year is a good time to take a look at the relationships you have, and how they can be improved or abandoned.
5. Be realistic. Change is hard; it’s often the best possible thing you can do for yourself, but trying to change too many aspects of your life at once can be very stressful and can undo the good effect it was intended to have. Quitting smoking, losing weight, enrolling in a photography course, committing to spending every weekend doing yard work for your grandma and reading a classic of literature every week, for instance, is bound to fail because you will overwhelm yourself. If you feel you need to do all those things, just don’t do them all at once; make priorities and do the most important ones first, no more than two at a time. Making yourself crazy is not an improvement in most cases.

Tips & Warnings

• Forgive yourself and move on. It’s not just you—nobody is perfect or had a perfect year. The key is to celebrate the good and downplay the bad.
• If you are making big changes in your life, notify the people around you. At most, you will generate support and encouragement; at least, you will have given fair warning and will feel more obligated to follow through.
• “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Sometimes, making change just for the sake of change can cause problems. Make sure you aren’t destroying anything of value. Aim for No Permanent Damage.
• Taking risks is a good thing, generally speaking, but be aware of all possible drawbacks before you jump into anything you can’t back away from after it’s done. When in doubt, sleep on it. You may be able to modify your planned change so it’s not as extreme at first.