Must read! 8 things you must do to begin this year on a perfect note!
In the excitement of seeing a New year, many are already making plans on how the year would go for them. 2022 is a new journey, more like a fresh start. What are your plans? What are those things you’re rooting for? What are your intentions for the year? These are some of the questions you should ask yourself in order to have a solid idea on how your year would go.
This article will guide you on how to plan and organize your year. So, strap your belts and grab a pack of popcorn as you read through!
1. Everything begins with prayer
Cliche as this might sound, praying is the perfect start for anything. Set a time, go to a quiet place (your life is involved here, so take it seriously), shut out every other thought from your mind and be calm, then say a prayer; commit your life and general well being into God’s hands. Seek His guidance to help you make your plans, ask that your plans be according to His will. God knows what the future holds for you, hence, His guidance would lead you away from impending errors and set you on the right track.
2. A thorough reflection on your life
This is the next step after praying and is very necessary in order to analyze, gauge and determine what your life has been like in the past in order to know the areas that need to be worked on. You meditate on the very essence of your existence and your uniqueness; your achievements and shortcomings. The essence of doing this is that it helps you have a solid picture of yourself hence, you’re able to know what you want vividly.
3. Identify your strengths and weaknesses of past years
This would enable you to access your strong points which could include patience, diligence, creativity, passion, discipline and others. Your weaknesses could also similarly involve bad temper, lust, arrogance, laziness. Meditation exposes each of these. You should also evaluate how well those strengths have been utilized in past years and how much progress was made, specifically, last year. This will aid in clear understanding where and how to apply those strengths.
4. Set achievable goals
Having reflected on yourself, your uniqueness, what you have to offer to the world and identified your strong and weak points, you should be able to set goals. Could be business related, spiritual, health wise (like setting a decision to lose weight, eat healthy or treat a health issue). Could also be mental or otherwise. The essence of setting goals is to ensure that you’re working towards being a better version of yourself in all ramifications. You could decide that you’ll work extra hard in your workplace in order to get promoted this year or pray your rosary daily. In all, make sure that your goals are realistic and achievable.
5. Set boundaries
You should know where to set boundaries; between business and pleasure, formality and informality, you should also set boundaries for how you speak and relate with others. Talking too much or being too playful often causes others to lose respect for such a person. Having principles helps in setting boundaries and identifying where a boundary has been overstepped by you or the other person.
6. Birds of different feathers don’t flock together!
The saying goes “like poles attract while unlike poles repel”. Having a circle of friends that have minds like yours, with similar ideologies and mindset would help you grow better. Surround yourself with people who have the strong desire to touch the world, be successful and attain greatness. Avoid as many people as possible, who don’t have the desire to be successful. You’ll be glad you did!
7. Make resolutions
A resolution is a decision to do something usually stemming from the desire to be better. Resolutions are so important as they aid personal growth and development. In the first month (January) of every year, most people make resolutions to guide them in achieving goals. A resolution could be spiritual based, business related, social or all of the above. You might resolve to talk less and think more this year (like I did), to be more punctual to activities (if you’re a perpetual late-comer; haha!) or to invest more. There are a million other resolutions you can make, given that they’re aimed at making you grow positively.
8. Don’t wait for later, start now!
I know how it can be when making big decisions, it’s usually so hard to take the first step. But, come on! You can’t keep postponing them all day. Take that bold step once and for all. Make that business plan, start that business, get that job, go on that trip, just start. You’ll be glad you did!
Each year is a new chapter in everyone’s life, it comes with its challenges, surprises, innovations and goodies. Consider it a new opportunity to achieve all you couldn’t in previous years. Life is too short to be wasted!