The Habits You Need to Start This Year Strong

The new year it’s here. 2022, finally! To start the year on the right note, I brought you the post I have been craving more at the start of this year: how to start the new year on a strong note. Who’s with me?

I don’t know about you, but every time the 26th of December comes around, I’m ready to plan and have a focused start to a brand new year. This year, it wasn’t exactly like that. On January 1st I started the year on the ER and have been slowly (but surely) getting my sh*t health together to start this 2022 right on the way I like it: STRONG. And that’s why, I decided that this was the way I wanted to start it over here too, with all the ways I discovered through the years on how to do exactly that:

1. Take care of your body

First things first: your body, your health. If you don’t have this, you don’t have anything else. Unfortunately, this one was a difficult one to stick to my mind. I have been neglecting it for the past few years until I couldn’t anymore. I was tired of being sick all the time and not being able to achieve what I have promised myself to achieve. That’s why I decided to put it on the top of my list and it should be on yours too.

If you like me, feel that you need to improve on this, start by this: 1) find a way to move your body regularly, find the best schedule for you and just do it, and 2) Eat right, fruit, vegetables, all the good stuff your body needs, find the right nutrition diet for you (not a crazy diet, a nurturing one, right for you, if you have the possibility of doing it with a professional, better, I know I did a few years ago and was one of the best things I did for my life). It’s that simple.

2. Take care of your mind

Second, on the list, it’s another undoubted important one: if your mind is not right, you can’t achieve anything. That’s it. You just can’t. I promise you, as soon as I started to search for ways to improve my mind, my doubts, my anxiety, everything that I felt was not right with me, I got a huge weight out of my shoulders. Articles like this one or this one kept me going on days I couldn’t function. There is no right way to achieve this. It depends on what it’s on your mind, but most importantly is this: prioritize self-care.

Prioritize taking care of yourself. Prioritize prioritizing yourself. Prioritize listening to your body. Listening to your mind. What is your mind telling you right now? On this note, I can point you toward people like Lavendaire, Angie Bellemare, and Anthony Robbins. Those were the crucial ones for achieving the mental state where I am now. And unfollow all the toxic things and people you don’t need from your IG feed, add motivational people, surround yourself with the vibes you crave. Take care of what gets inside your mind. Reduce the news intake. Reduce social media scrolling. Focus on you.

READ MORE: SELF-CARE: 6 ways to take care of yourself during these crazy times

3. Sleep

Sleep is crucial for a healthy body, healthy mind. I know you have already heard it, read it, be nagged about it by your mom, dad, friends, grandma. You know you had to go to bed early when you were a kid, to be good wake in the morning for school. You knew how to do it, remember? So, be your own parental figure and remember that you need to sleep. Sleep is important for an enormous list of reasons. You can read it all about with a quick search on Google, but if you go through the above two points, you will find it in your research how important this is for your health and your mind.

And for last: on your productivity. You will not be able to achieve your most passionate goals if you don’t take care of yourself and rest your body. So, on this topic, just discover how much sleep you need daily to function at your max, and prioritize having it on a daily basis. If you need to go to bed earlier, find ways to do it. If you want some inspiration, Angie Bellemare’s morning routines will nail it. I’m still working on waking up before everyone in this house, but I’m getting there.

4. Have a goal (and a plan!)

If you don’t know where you’re headed, how will you know if you’re going well? You need a goal. A real goal that makes you feel excited and happy just to think about it. For this, I can’t recommend you enough Angie Bellemare’s vision board party or the Your Best Year from Lisa Jacobs. On making a plan and getting it done, I use a combination of the 12 Week Year with Sarra Cannon’s 90 Day Plan. As I mentioned in my last post, my 2021 Year Review, this has made me wonder to help me achieve my big goals last year.

READ MORE: Year in Review: thanking 2021 and getting ready for 2022!

5. Know how to prioritize and de-prioritize

That’s one thing we can’t change: time. We all have the same time in the day: 24 hours. And to achieve our most important goal, while taking care of ourselves, sleeping, and making sure we feel great, it’s impossible to do everything and say yes to every request that comes our way. That is why it’s crucial to learn how to say NO. Yap, it seems that simple but it can take a while until you get used to it.

Just think this way: while you say no to the things that are not important to you or that don’t bring you good or simply are not urgent at the moment, you make space for what is, for your goals, for what really matters to you. I know this can be tricky, but it becomes a good habit and easier as you go through the year happily focused on the person you want to become and most importantly, aligned with your true values.

6. Know when to let go, toxic people, toxic behaviours

I know how this topic can be difficult. Most of us had to let go of something that wasn’t making us good at any point in our life. If you didn’t, most likely you will at some time. At the moment it can seem impossible to think of your life without it. Without that friend, you always knew but deep down you know your friendship is not the best for you. That behavior that you know it’s killing your body each day. Whatever it is, I know you know what I’m talking about.

If it’s not helping you in a positive way, improving you, making you good, healthier, let it go. Focus on passing through it. If it is a friendship, just let the person go and focus on yourself or other better, happier things in your life. Most likely, focusing on yourself will be a change. I know it was for me. It was the time I really realized I never have done it before. It was a crucial moment in my life.

If it’s a behavior, research how other people have changed it. Find a different, healthier behavior to replace it. On this point, I recommend my current reading Anthony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within, another life-changing reading.

READ MORE: #Liveyourdreamlife: How to change your mindset to have the life you truly desire

7. Time management

On this topic, there are so many things I could share with you, but the internet, Youtube, Pinterest, are full of tips and tricks on how to achieve this. The best tip I can share with you is this: find out what works for you and focus on that. If you are a handwriting person, get a notebook (something like a bullet journal, whatever you prefer as soon as it’s portable) and write every day a list of your top goals for the day, plus all tasks and requests that come to you during the day. You can use the simple basics of Bullet Journal and put a star or * in front of your top priority tasks.

Or, if you’re more of a digital one, sign-up to an app like Todoist, Asana, or Trello where you can have your to-do list accessible from any device (I’m a sucker for Todoist, Asana for my business goals and Trello for my big goals and other projects).

I always start on this note with Time management because if you have your goals and all the things that come to your mind and are requested to you daily down on a list, it’s easier to feel calmer, be able to step away, take a real look and answer: what do I need to prioritize today? And let go of all the rest.

Most likely, if you’re like me or most people I know, you will not be able to do all the things you have on your to-do list in a day. So, prioritize what needs to be really done today and postpone to tomorrow or another day in the week, what needs to be done but can wait for later. And then breath. And celebrate your achievements.

I could go on and on on this topic because there are so much interesting and important things to share, but let me leave you on this note: be constantly learning. Read new things. New ways. But keep only what works for you. You will learn with time that not everything that works for me, or any influencer on Youtube, will work for you. You need to try and incorporate on your daily methods, the things that help you. It can be GTD method, Bullet Journaling, thirty minutes meetings, Scrum, 12 Week Plan, focused work in the mornings, or at nights, time-batching, time-blocking, Pomodoro. There are so many things. Just have fun and gather your best method. You will find it.

And that’s it. I hope this helps you start this new year on a high note. Start it motivated, happy to go for it, excited. Don’t lose that feeling. Keep feeding it. Let’s have the best year ever!

Let’s connect on IG and keep motivating each other!