The New Year period brings a rush of optimism and good cheer, right? We wish health & happiness to anyone we see, but did you miss out the most important person..?
You can trace the surge of goodwill back to Christmas. It may have been forced down our throats since September by business, but when it actually arrives, the time off work combined with that build up, lends a distinctly abnormal feel to life.
As Christmas passes, it’s New Year that looms, and on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, we wish the best to everyone. We tell them that we hope the year ahead is a good one, full of health and happiness.
We tend to mean it too! We try and get to as many people as we can, spreading the cheer, and we accept the goodwill that comes back towards us. We even find that this good feeling extends to people we don’t like, or people we don’t even know!
It feels nice, doesn’t it? But I asked earlier if you may have missed the most important person – regular readers of mine will know exactly who that person is…yourself!
Did you remember to wish yourself a Happy New Year!
Of course, wishing something to happen is not enough to make it happen. It needs to be followed up by action, but that New Year hope and optimism is a great foundation to the goal setting and achievement process.
To set a goal properly, it needs to be a goal that you want to happen, and there also needs to be belief – both belief that the goal *will* happen, and belief that you are worthy of the goal.
It can take some practice and work to get this mindset right, but when you get used to it, it gets easier, and you’ll find that you can be invigorated by the same freshness of optimism that we feel at New Year at any time of year.
Because the New Year feeling comes during that odd period of the holidays, it very often fades away after that holiday, as your mind equates the return to ‘normal’ life with the ‘normal’ expectations of your goals, and that expectation is of not very much.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Make sure you include yourself as you dish out the New Year goodwill. Take the feelings of optimism and hope and turn them into action, and you really *can* have a year of change and progress!
That’s it for today – do let me know what you think!
‘Til Next Time,
Health & happiness,
Gordon
P.S. If you enjoyed this article, check out this other article of mine ‘Why Does New Year Optimism Always Fade?’
P.P.S. If you take a look at my coaching, as well as getting my 8 step goal achievement formula free, I’ll help you make sure you look after yourself this New Year! You also get 2 of my best books thrown in, and throughout the month of January you can try it out for just $1!
Transform Your Life Now!
A timely reminder, Gordon, thank you. Along with some other people I know, I decided what I wanted to leave behind in 2012, wrote it on a piece of paper and ceremonially burned it in my fireplace on New Year’s Eve. Then, when I went to watch the sun rise a few hours later, I reminded myself of how brilliant my newly explanded life would be without the things I was leaving behind. Not sure how much this is aligned with your approach but it’s working for me so far! H
It does align with what I said Harriet, because you are taking the time, effort and *action* to not only do positive things for yourself, but to acknowledge it too – I like it!
Cheers,
Gordon
I love a good goal 🙂
Thanks for stopping by – so do I!
Cheers,
Gordon
Yes ~ you are so right. So many people set goals that certainly SEEM achievable but if they are not believable to them….they will never be realized! Great reminder 🙂
Hi Laura,
Yes, it’s such a key point that can make a huge difference to a year of change or a year of the same old, same old!
Cheers,
Gordon
I am certainly finding myself one piece of icon that would remind me constantly of the excitement of the new year… because truth be told is that as the first quarter of the year fades away (even earlier), promises tend to be forgotten. I should make that thing be my computer haha 🙂
Thanks, Gordon!
I’ve written a lot that I think it’s better to set goals at any other time *but* New Year, precisely because of that reason. Then youu could be surer of a happy year ahead because you were *already* on the goal path!
Cheers,
Gordon
Wishing, hoping, cheering, thinking, planning, deciding, whatever and then… allowing! Don’t you think?
🙂
Hi Stella,
Superb point about allowing – something many people fail to do!
cheers,
Gordon