The beginning of a new year is a traditional time to make resolutions, attempt new beginnings and promise yourself that this time you are certainly going to turn your life around. However, all too often the power of these good intentions fizzles out by about January the 3rd. if you don't want this to happen again, you have to give yourself a jolt - some tangible impulse that will get you moving and signify the beginning of new things at the very start of the new year. Let's take a look at a few ways to do it.
1. Throw Away All the Junk
An all-time favorite piece of advice nobody ever follows. Throughout our lives we accumulate all kinds of junk: from old magazines nobody is ever going to read, to clothes we don't even remember having, to ancient TV sets busted beyond repair. All these things not only occupy space in our homes - they serve as visible and tangible reminders of unfinished business and mistakes we've made, taking up our attention and keeping us from moving into the future. Throw it all away - or give to somebody you know will like it. Or hold a sale. Or get rid of it via Craigslist or eBay. Just don't keep all the junk around.
2. Redesign Your Home
There is no better way to symbolize the start of a new year than to begin it in a renewed home. The change needn't be drastic. You don't have to rebuild half your house, it may be more than enough to limit yourself to a superficial yet easily noticeable change - get new slip-covers for your furniture, order new custom window treatments, change the lighting - ask any designer and you will be amazed how little is enough to make your living space look completely different.
3. Start Working out
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that almost every New Year resolution contains a point dedicated to improving one's physical condition - yet, again, few actually follow through with this intention. The only way to overcome this obstacle is to simply decide that you are going to, for example, go for a jog every morning, and start doing so - without delays and waiting for better weather. If you wait, chances are you are never going to begin at all. The aforementioned jogging is probably your best bet - you can do it every day (which is, ironically, an easier habit to learn that going to a gym a couple times a week), it doesn't require preparation and provides you with a jolt of energy for an entire day. Think winter is unsuitable for running? Think again!
4. Start Getting up Early
As in 6 o'clock early. When you get up early, you suddenly discover those additional hours you always seem to lack. You can deal with your personal business in these morning hours, while everybody else is still asleep and doesn't distract you. And there is hardly a better way to mark up the beginning of a new life than scrambling all your habitual behavior patterns and forcing yourself to adopt new ones - and you will be amazed how easy it is to change the time you get up and how many benefits you are going to reap.
5. Dealing with Unfinished Business
Compile a list of all the things you are constantly going to do but never actually manage to get to them. All things you've promised yourself or somebody to do but never fulfilled the promise. Everything that migrates into each New Year resolution list from the previous one. Make this list as complete and possible - and then either start doing this or that thing immediately, or remove it from the list forever and never remind yourself of it again.
Starting a new life is never easy and, frankly speaking, one rarely manages to do it successfully. But one thing you surely can do is make an effort - and the new year is, symbolically, the best time to do so. Good luck!
