6 Ways to Bring More Balance and Joy into Your Life in the New Year
Can you believe 2024 is just around the corner? If you’re like me, you’re probably starting to think about how to finally achieve that perfect work-life balance, and/or leave stress and overwhelm behind, and/or ___________.
This “new year, new me” mentality can be a great motivator to make some big changes in our lives.
The problem is we often set ourselves up for failure.
As a therapist and success coach, I see clients making three big mistakes when it comes to new year’s resolutions:
- Wanting to change everything at once, or setting completely unrealistic goals
- Not making a plan for how to implement the changes they want to make
- Not being clear about why they want to change things
Once we fall into these patterns, we tend to feel overwhelmed.
Then we beat ourselves up for not achieving our goals.
And eventually we give up on them altogether.
The good news? There is a better way.
Here are 6 of my tried-and-true strategies for making resolutions that actually stick—and bringing more joy to your life in the process:
1. Take stock of now.
If your life feels stressful, overwhelming and unbalanced, it might feel impossible to make time for the things that really matter to you.
But the first step to creating the life you want is to make time to reflect on your current situation.
Take yourself to your favorite café, or your favorite spot in nature, or your favorite chair at home. Then take some time to journal on questions like:
· What’s working in your life right now?
· What do you want to improve?
· Why do you want to make changes? Pro tip: do your best to go deep into your why so you can circle back to it when things get tough.
2. Create a vision for your future.
Once you’ve got a clear picture of the now, it’s time to think through how you want your future to look.
· What do you want to make more time for?
· What do you want to let go of?
· What are you willing to sacrifice in order to get to where you want to be?
3. Start small.
It’s easy to overestimate how much time you have and how fast you can accomplish things.
When you put too much on your plate at once, it can feel overwhelming and kill your motivation, as I mentioned above.
Instead, start with one area of your life you really want to focus on. Do you want to start exercising? Read more? Form deeper friendships?
Once you identify the area you want to work on, break it down into baby steps. Pick the easiest, most doable thing you could do and start there. Some examples: take a 10-minute walk. Read for 7 minutes. Text a friend you’ve been wanting to spend more time with.
4. Schedule, schedule, schedule
Everything in you will tell you something else is more important than working toward your new goals. So what can you do to counter that resistance?
Make your baby steps a part of your schedule. Treat them like a work meeting or a doctor’s appointment.
Write them down in your calendar, making sure there’s enough space for them in the midst of everything else in your life.
And when you feel hesitation or resistance? Circle back to your big why.
5. Celebrate
It can be tempting to downplay your successes as you move toward your goals.
But every time you choose not to acknowledge yourself when you take a baby step, you miss an opportunity to feel good.
Our culture teaches us to wait until we reach our “ultimate” goal before we give ourselves any credit. But when we decide to take the time to celebrate ourselves along the way, it not only feeds our motivation—it makes the journey much more fun.
6. Experiment and adjust.
As you start working toward your goals, think of it as an experiment. Don’t expect to have it all figured out on the first try.
Commit to a new routine for a certain amount of time and set a date to assess how it’s going.
Acknowledge what you’ve achieved. Recognize what’s not working, and ask yourself how you can adjust and/or give yourself more support.
If it feels right, reach out to friends or other people in your life to help you stay accountable.
As you experiment, know that it’ll take some time to fine tune. But the more you keep in touch with what you want to bring into your life, the more likely you are to achieve it.
One step at a time.
Do you want to learn more about how to reach your goals in the new year? In my upcoming course, Embracing Self-Love, we’ll co-create a path to a new relationship with yourself and the life you want. Learn more here.