6 things you can do to make a perfect start into 2020

Happy New Year 2020 everybody,

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”

Oprah Winfrey

I am honored that you are here to read my first post of the year 2020! I am extremely thankful for each step you accompanied me on this journey on my own blog. Thank you especially for all the feedback (positive and negative) and encouraging words!

Nobody knows where this cruise will lead to but it´s your decision to enjoy it and make it yours or to bob up and down and be neutral about it.

I am still motivated for continuing this odyssey and I want to become better at enjoying this journey and steering it myself! I am now writing for approximately 10 months for my own blog and it taught me many things, especially things about myself. One of the most striking things is that it taught me to pursue, let me explain.
As everything that one starts, it started with a vague idea of trying if I enjoy writing and if I could get good at it. However, after some time the doubts started to sneak in. Thoughts like: “I am not good enough.” Or “I will never do something good with my writing.” Or “I could rather be watching a movie than punishing people with another imperfectly written piece.” And many more.

But I persisted until now and my goal is to refuse to give up and continue trying for the long run. Maybe in a year or two looking back, I can tell if it was worth it or not. But for now, it´s worth it since it helped me and according to the feedback, it also helped one or two other people.

Am I now a famous blogger? Do I have millions of followers? Am I getting money out of this? No, no and no, certainly not. But maybe only not yet? Maybe if I am persisting to write for a year or two more, maybe then I am getting something else out of this than teaching myself to persist. Maybe I will reach more people and motivate them to take good action. That would be great, but the most important part is that I am moving forward, and on the way, I try my best to encourage and lift up other people.

But enough about my last year. This post is actually about the new year in front of us.

I am really excited about this post because as I mentioned in my blogpost “6 methods you can directly apply to fight your habit of overthinking and re-focus on taking good actions” I like this time of the year especially because it´s about reconnecting with your loved ones, re-evaluating life, looking back at the last year and looking at the goals for the next year.
So, I am really pumped about sharing the things I try to do every year before the new year or in the first week of the new year.

First, I try my best to make time for myself to think about the past year. I look back at everything that happened in the last year. A year passes by so fast that we sometimes forget how many wonderful and amazing things happened while we tried our best to make the year go well and solve problems occurring here and there. That´s why I think everybody should take some calm time, no matter if walking, sitting or laying, to recall the past year. Especially, look at the highlights and maybe take some notes or print some pictures and make an album or a video?

I love to combine that with my next point write a letter to yourself in a year. In did this for the first time last year because of a recommendation from my now wife (thank you for this recommendation my love!). She already did that some times, she even wrote a letter to herself in 15 years or something like that, and she really liked it (maybe I´ll try the same one day). So, a day ago we opened our letters to ourselves from the last year and I was surprised how great it was. It was an amazing experience to get a letter from your past self. I wrote myself from the year that passed, and I told myself about my goals for the next year (2019). Hence, now I could remember what happened the year before and I could look at if I reached my goals from a year ago. Then, we wrote in approximately 30 minutes the new letters that we will open together next year before the new year. It took some time because I was writing down the most important things that happened during the whole year and my goals and hopes for the next year. And I already look extremely forward to read this letter and write a new one but before there is a whole year to live, grow and experience!

There we go, those two combined help tremendously to be grateful and I think that´s the best basis to build on for this new year! And now we will start to build on this basis!

Next, think about your goals and dreams and write them down. You can start by writing all goals and dreams down, I call this my impossible list, and from there you choose the ones that are most important for you to achieve next year. My recommendation is to not choose too many and take at least a goal from each of those categories to take care of and constantly improve yourself:

• Physical (Nutrition, sport but also things like economic well-being)
• Social/emotional (Taking care of social bonds with friends and family)
• Mental (Learning and growing)
• Spiritual (Discover your purpose, what can you contribute. Where do you want to go?)

Think about everything and everybody that´s important for you and note down things that you want to achieve in the next year. Don´t forget to write down goals for yourself, family and friends, career, and possibly other goals that you have. Probably it´s best if you can write down as few as possible but for me, it´s really difficult to only write 1-3 goals. I would say that I have some goals that are more important than others but the less important goals are the foundation for the possible success of the more important ones.

To make it a bit clearer, this is how it looks now for me. That will change probably a bit over time but to give you an example:

• Physical
  • I want to improve my nutrition further, continue regular workouts and try different sports with the main goal to get a flat belly next year
• Social/emotional
  • I want to connect deeper with my love, family, and friends. Therefore, I will make time for and check-in regular with everybody.
• Mental
  • I want to learn more about writing and how the world functions.
• Spiritual
  • I want to use what I learn to help other people. I want to inspire and motivate other people to strive for a better world.

That was the longest and most difficult part of the whole post, yehaaa we made it! From here on it will all be less intimidating and easier to achieve.

The next part is to plan the beginning of this year. Don´t make this too complicated but try to implement small steps for all of your goals for this year. No matter how small they are trying to do something as soon as possible.
For example, if you want to do more sport just go for a walk. Or if you want to learn a new (or re-learn an old skill) then just do something small. For example, if you want to learn an instrument then look where to get a good/cheap one or take your old instrument out and dust it off.

Afterwards take the time to schedule meetings with important people. Or at least write down whom you want to see soon. For example, if you want to meet an old friend call him and tell him “happy new year” and ask for a meeting. This also shouldn´t take a long time and should be very pleasant and doable during the first and calm vacation days.

My final recommendation is to tell all the important people in your life that you love them and that you are thankful to have them. Do this and enjoy what you have. Relax a bit and look forward to a wonderful new year incoming!
Now, after you planned for a great start of the year, it´s time to enjoy what you have and use the vacation time to reconnect to all important people in your life.

I wish you a wonderful year 2020. Welcome in a new decade of experiences, memories, and teachings.
I look forward to see you soon and to hear all your feedback!

All the best,

Alexander

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson