It’s the first week of the year and you know what that means?!? The start of a lot of new year’s resolutions, planning new goals and fresh starts. But we say DON’T START your goals in January!! That’s right, we actually recommend that you do the opposite. Take the month off, slow down and regroup. Learn to sit down with your thoughts, make time to reflect on the year that just passed. The holiday season tends to be busy and hurried, full of stressors and gatherings. A slower pace in January actually helps your mind and body recover, recharge and prepare for what is ahead.  

 GET INSPIRED 

Take inspiration from nature. Winter is the season when nature is getting ready for all the splendor of Spring. There is preparation, there is a plan unfolding deep in the roots -where things are not seen. So it should be with you and me, we should take the month of January to slow down, to sit with our thoughts and recharge. Fall in love with taking time to dig in and search within.  In the Revise & Co goal planner we talk about taking a day (preferably before the start of your year), a day where you can be alone, with no technology or other interruptions. We encourage our readers to invest in themselves- to get a hotel room, get food delivered and spend the day refreshing and doing some goal setting.

If you we don’t take the time to prepare, we will never achieve personalized goals. But how do we prepare?

 Journaling 

Taking the time to write down and document your thoughts about the past year.  Which are good topics to write about?

• Write about the lessons that you learned.
• Write down what you are grateful for.
• Write down how you can improve from pas failures.
• Write down what habits you want to carry forward into the new year.
• What habits do you want to modify.
• Write about the difficult seasons, the difficult people, difficult situations.

Take an inventory of your thoughts and what inspired or triggered them.

SET PERSONALIZED GOALS 

Take the time to set new personalized goals for yourself. This is the time to make the plan, not to set it in motion but to set the plan. Activate your planning powers and place them into action. If you have trouble with goal setting or need inspiration check out the Revise Goal Planner.  

It teaches how to set personalized goals and even includes a 1 year planner to help you live out those goals for that year.  And don’t worry if you are starting in the middle of the year the planner is undated so you will get an entire year of planning.