Are you desperate not to have another new year ushered in with resolutions that you fail to deliver on? Do you want 2018 to be the year that real sustainable change happens? Do you simply want it to be an incredible year?
If you’ve answered “yes” to any of these questions, then we’ve got the ways and means to ensure your 2018 starts with a bang, and you can ring the changes. Read on for our favourite ways to get 2018 off to a great start. Take your pick. Do one, do all, but make 2018 your year.
1. Do something new
All too often we get stuck in a rut of the humdrum of life, wafting from month to month and year to year without realising we’ve completely stagnated. Make 2018 the year you do something different and new, and in so doing, expand your horizons. Whether that’s travelling to a new place, taking up a new hobby, learning to meditate, or starting to volunteer, the act of doing something new will impact your life for the better.
2. Assess your career goals
A new year is a perfect time to re-evaluate where you are, and where you want to be. Successful people rarely just ‘happen’. They’ve set a goal, worked out their course, and then gone after it with determination. Whatever you do, don’t assess and then forget about it. Act. Whether that’s going for that promotion, working out what additional training you need to progress, or even starting your own business.
3. Assess your life goals
In the same way, are you where you wanted to be at this stage in your life? If yes, what are your next steps? If no, what can you do to get there?
4. Make 2018 the year of random acts of kindness
Random Acts of Kindness cannot only transform the day, week, or even year of the recipient but can give you a feel-good buzz too. With the headlines of 2017 making our communities feel a little less safe, and the world a little scarier, help to initiate the change you want to see. Take a few moments each month to do something above and beyond for someone.
5. Prioritise your health
It’s a cliché with good reason. Your health is everything. Make 2018 the year you commit to putting your health first. If you’re successful at making big changes (gym commitments and dietary commitments, for example), that’s great. If you find sustaining change difficult, then take baby steps. Even the smallest changes become habits and grow into permanent improvements.
6. Get your finances in check
Like life in general, our finances can get stuck in a rut. Assess how you and your household are doing financially and make small changes to improve things for the future. If you’re in debt work out a budget and how you’re going to get out of it. If you’ve had changes over the last year (children or jobs being the main ones), then re-evaluate if your current financial planning makes sense. Make 2018 the year you take out income protection like you know you should, or start saving for your children with a Junior ISA.
7. Take time, every day
Our modern lives can end up in a frenzy of business. We dash from one thing to the next and rarely take a chance to savour the moment. Use the new year as an opportunity to build in a few minutes every day where you just are. No doing, no rushing, just being.
8. Get organised
Talking of busy-ness, it’s time to get organised. Make sense of the chaos of everyday life by instilling some order. Take small steps to change the way your life runs. This may be to set up a birthday reminder app, starting saving for next Christmas, or getting a whiteboard for the kitchen. By getting organised you’ll feel more in control.
9. Learn something
We get old when we stop learning. With the ticking of time that the new year symbolises, keep your mind active and interested in learning something new. Perhaps 2018 will be the year you take up a new language, a new sport, or learn to solve the Rubiks Cube!
10. Give time
Lastly, make 2018 the year that you refocus on your family. Whatever age they are, and whatever life demands of you, it’s important to make time for the people who matter.
We hope you find some inspiration in the above list. And from us to you we wish you a Happy, Healthy New Year!
