Happy New Year Friends! The new year is always filled with the hope of a fresh start. We embrace it as an opportunity to make changes to become better versions of ourselves, but in this blog post we are going to talk about 4 things not to bring into the new year with you.
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1. Regret
Sometimes regret can cause us to reflect on ourselves and our choices and be useful to us. A lot of times it is not. We carry around regret about things in our past. Things we have done, or not done, that we with we could change. We regret the missed opportunities and roads not taken. The thing is that the past is behind us and regretting our choices now just keeps our focus in the past instead of the here and now.
Life doesn’t happen in a straight line. It’s full of twists and turns, and most often where we are at in this moment is not where we thought we would be. That is okay. That is part of the adventure of life.
So let go of the regret. Leave it behind with this past year. This year focus on what’s right in front of you. The life you are living today. With your focus removed from the past you can work on making the future what you want it to be.
2. Procrastination
I, like everyone else, tend to put off hard things. The idea is always to get the easy things done first and then handle the bigger things. But that’s not really how it works is it? What usually happens is we put something off and continue to put it off until suddenly we are faced with some sort of deadline that causes us a great deal of stress, and who needs more of that right now?
What was once a doable task takes on a life of its own in our minds. It grows in proportion to the amount of time we put it off, and out anxiety about completing it grows right along with it.
So this year let’s take a different approach. Let’s do the hard things first and fearlessly. Mark Twain said “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.“
3. Buying “things” we don’t actually need
This year let’s focus on the quality of the things we buy instead of the quantity. After all, we all work hard for our money.
It’s very easy to feel like we have to live up to certain ideals; drive certain cars, live in certain size houses, have certain wardrobes, watch certain TVs, etc and etc. But a lot of us have what we need. We buy more things, or additional things, because we want to keep up with the ideals that society sets around us.
The truth is there are a lot of benefits to saying no to this constant buying of stuff. Living simply can be a beautiful thing. It keeps our money in our pockets (or savings accounts), it is more sustainable for the environment, and less stuff means less clutter, which means better mental health.
All I’m suggesting is that each of us try to be more mindful of the purchases we are making this year. Maybe first ask ourselves “is this something I actually need?”
William Morris said “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
4. Guilt over past “failures”
If you have guilt over things you perceive as past failures you are not alone. These can be big things or small things. Anything from losing a job to not making your weight loss goal last year.
A lot of times we beat ourselves up over feelings of guilt from things that are long past, and what good does this guilt do us? We end up overeating, or overspending, or overdrinking in an attempt to make ourselves feel better.
What we need to do is asses whether those feelings of guilt are serving us. If they are not, leave them behind. If you can’t change it, leave it behind. If you can change it then stop feeling guilty and just change it.
In her book, You Can Heal Your Life, Lousie Hay says “the point of power is always in the present moment.” Your chance to create the person you want to be and the life you want to live is right now in the present moment.
How we spend every moment ends up being the sum of our lives. So change what you can if you need to, but let go of the guilt and choose instead to move forward with intention.
4 Things not to bring into the new year
This new year brings new opportunities and adventures. It will have challenges for sure, but also beauty. Let’s focus on the beauty and leave behind the things that are not helping us. Regret, procrastination, spending on what we don’t need, and guilt. These four things not to bring into the new year will help us live more simply and enjoy life more completely. So here is to the new year and it being the best one yet!
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