When a New Year comes every one is making their New Year’s resolution, a list of things we’d like to accomplish, or even sometimes a list of things we’d like to change, because we’re all striving to better ourselves. I encourage this practice, however we often make the mistake of waiting for the New Year to do this, and make drastic changes. You might notice that by February you’re back to the person you were last year. This is why you should prepare ahead of time. So here are 5 things to do before 2017, to help the transition.
- Declutter. This is going to be different for everyone. But I want to emphasize on the junk, anything that doesn’t bring any value to your life, both mental and physical value. Get rid of everything that no longer reflects the person you are. Getting rid of the negative things of 2016 is creating more space to welcome goods of 2017.
- Clean. Cleaning your living space is always a good idea; I personally get motivated and feel like I can accomplish anything when my room is clean.
- Reflect. Look back to evaluate yourself. Ask yourself questions like; what have I done this year? What are the mistakes I’ve made? What lesson did I learn from these mistakes? What did I spend most of my time on? Am I where I was expecting to be five years ago? Are my priorities the same? Take your time to really think about each question.
- Be grateful. Good and bad things happened this year; sometimes you can’t do anything about the bad things. But what you can do is to be grateful for what you have and appreciate. If you think you don’t have anything to be grateful for well here’s one, life. Many people started 2016 just like you, but unfortunately won’t be here to see 2017. Life is a blessing. So take the time to thank God for 2016.
- Plan for the up coming year. Now that you’ve done all the above, its time to plan (aka your new year’s resolution). This is the step where you’re going to plan how you’ll correct and improve things. What will I do differently? How can I avoid repeating the same mistakes? What are your priorities now?
Know that the numbers changing (from 2016 to 2017) will not automatically turn you into a better version of yourself, you have to put in the work and effort to actually change.
I hope that doing these 5 things will help you get ready for 2017. Comment what you like to do in the last few days of a year. I like to look at my “New Year’s resolution list” to see what I’ve accomplished.
