Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a lovely festive season. I spent the holiday season on my own this year, which was a first and I enjoyed it. It was time. Time for peace and relaxation. A time for me to melt away all the worries from the year. It allowed me to ease into the New Year, without rushing to have everything done by January 1st. I did not have the capacity for it. By embracing the pace of winter, I was able to start this year strong with a full reset. I haven’t completed the full reset, but for once, I feel present in the activities and you can too. The good news is, it is not a race to start the New Year. You can spend the next few weeks reflecting on the past year, setting your personal development goals and still thrive in 2025.
Firstly, I want to remind you – like I was reminded this week – that you are absolutely amazing. Secondly, this year, remember to let go of what no longer serves you in your current season and use everything to your advantage.
New Year, Improved You
I know that you are probably flooded with posts and videos about ‘new year, new me’. Is it really a ‘new you’ or do you want an ‘improved you’ or a ‘better you’? As I slowly tick off the last remaining activities on my full reset list, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share what I am doing to set myself up to thrive this year. Therefore, when you are ready to reflect on the past year and set up your personal development goals, you have a roadmap. A roadmap to ease you in, build momentum and reenergise yourself. Moreover, you can’t jump into this year with clarity and purpose, without reflecting on the past year. Light a few candles, make yourself some tea, grab your journal and a pen. Let’s close this chapter and move onto the next one.
What Does Personal Development Mean?
When people use the phrase ‘personal development’, it is always related to your professional career but it is so much more than that. For me, it’s about gaining a deeper understanding about myself. This includes my strengths and weaknesses, values and beliefs, my wants and desires. Having this sense of awareness helps us to make choices that are aligned with ourselves, so that we gain the confidence we need to take a step forward in our purpose. This covers all areas of our lives including the digital, financial, health and physical space. It’s about developing and investing in your full self.
For my full reset, I wanted to set myself up for an intentional and fulfilling year. To do this, I leaned into having a fresh start in all areas of my life. Everyone has their own yearly reset routine and there is no right or wrong way to do this. You can get inspired by what you see online but I would refrain from copying multiple people’s routines as it may not necessarily serve you. In short, I want you to think about what your intentions are for this reset, what do you want to achieve and bring with you into the New Year.
Do you want to reassess your financial & career space? Do you want to get rid of the old to make physical space for the new? Or is a digital detox something that has been on your mind? Figure out what you want and then create a list based on these spaces of things that you want to get done.
Organise Your Physical & Digital Space
Raise your hand if you find cleaning therapeutic? I might be one of few in this camp. A New Year means a fresh start and the deep cleaning tradition offers most people an emotional reset, a clean slate and a fresh mindset. It’s more than a routine tidy but a deep clean of everything. If there is one thing that I despise more than seeing hair on my floor, it’s paper. You would have thought that in this day and age, more companies would send letters via email. That is not my case. The amount of paper that I accumulated over the last year is disgusting! I spent three hours shredding it all. It felt like a weight was lifted from shoulders. Decluttering my physical space was a lot easier because I routinely put things in piles throughout the year.
In addition to the physical space, organising the digital space is something that I never considered until recently. This requires a lot more brain power surprisingly! This includes unsubscribing to unwanted newsletters, deleting old contacts and moving all the content on my camera rolls to the external hard drive.
Roadmap:
- Donate clothing that no longer fit or align with your personal style.
- Wash make up brushes and throw out expired products.
- Unfollow social media accounts that no longer relevant to you.
- Clear email inboxes.
Sanitise Your Health & Wellness Space
Before I get into the goal setting mode, there are certain things that I want to accomplish first. There is something about washing and cleaning certain spaces that feels like the old energy is being removed for the new energy to sweep in. One of the things that I did was a deep clean. Similar to how I deep cleaned my physical and digital spaces, I had an everything shower. An everything shower includes shaving, exfoliating and peels. Once I stepped out of that shower, I felt like I was ready to get into the mood of setting my goals for the year. I have carried that feeling with me this past week doing a little bit here and there.
Roadmap:
- Sanitise your devices
- Deep clean (everything shower)
- Clean out skincare cabinet
- Clean out pantry & restock staples
Personal Development Goal Setting Space
Now that the old energy is out and you have made room for the new energy, it’s time to commit planning your year with purpose and setting intentional goals to fulfil your dreams. One of the spaces that I like to prioritise creating goals is the financial space. At the end of the day, this space does support the physical, digital and health and wellness spaces more than we realise. I have a budget spreadsheet that I fill out every month with all my expenses, savings and additional costs that crop up throughout the month. Everyone is different but I like to know where every single CHF goes so I can adjust my budgets accordingly. Then at the end of the year, I have everything in one sheet to review on the previous year’s spending habits. If you have never done that, I suggest giving that a try.
Roadmap:
- Set savings goals for the new year
- Update budget spreadsheets
- Set monthly reminders to review
- Open a retirement/emergency fund
Reset. Reflect. Evaluate
Reflecting on the past year was a really good exercise for me as I don’t usually commit to doing the monthly reviews as much as I do weekly reviews. I allowed me to be honest with myself, pour out everything so it was on paper and no longer hanging inside of me.
Roadmap questions:
- What were your biggest achievements for the past year?
- What would you have done differently and why?
- Are you proud/happy of the person you have become?
- What are the three most important lessons that this year taught you?
- With one word, how would you describe the past year?
Setting Personal Development Goals For The New Year
Your personal development goals for the new year is personal and it’s intimate. We are in a culture of oversharing, but I am a firm believer that most goals should be kept to yourself. If you have a fitness or health and wellness goal where you need an accountability partner, then share that goal with someone who can commit to being that partner. Your goals should scare you and challenge you to be a better person. At the end of this new year, you can look back and know that you did the hard things and succeeded. Even if you did not succeed at everything, you know that you have done the work.
This year is going to look different for you because you have everything you need inside of you to propel yourself to the next level. You just need to recognise who you are, your endless possibilities to make your dreams into your reality. We are going to dig deep this year, stay focused and celebrate every win no matter how big or small. I hope you are ready.
Wishing you all a lovely start to the New Year! It’s time to ease into it at your own pace, dream big, build new habits or double down on existing ones. Make sure to hit that subscribe button to join the community and never miss out on a post. Find me on Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok for more powerlifting and wellness content.
Until next time,
Folakemi
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