Congratulations! We’ve made it through another year and another decade. Amidst the craziness of Christmas parties and braving through hectic malls and preparing to face nosy family members, we sometimes forget that the end of the year is such a prime opportunity to relax, reflect and recharge. Most of us are off work, and most responsibilities come to a halt for a few days.
As the year comes to an end, it’s the perfect time to perform some self-reflection and to pat yourself on the back for all that you’ve done in 2019. It can sometimes be hard to accept the big or small wins and it can be so very easy to remember the losses. The truth is that while you may not have accomplished everything that you wanted to this year, you have made tremendous growth by making it through another full year of highs, lows, and everything in between.
This year, I’m grateful for many things, but one of the biggest ones is starting ‘The Struggling Graduate’. I’ve met so many amazing people through the blog and we’ve built a small but growing community, and I’m so excited for what’s to come. I think of my end-of-year reflection as a sort of mental, physical and spiritual “winter cleaning”. Without further ado, here are some ways you can make the most out of the holidays to hit the ground running in 2020:
Relax
The first step after a long and at times gruelling year is to just relax. Take a couple days to just chill out, watch Christmas movies or Friends reruns back-to-back, spend time with family and friends, go ice skating with your significant other, visit a Christmas market, or just catch up on sleep. Basically, do whatever you find the most relaxing. The holidays are meant to be a mental break from everything – so don’t do anything which brings you stress or unhappiness. A glass of wine in the tub; a piece of pie by the fireplace – find your zen.
Reflect
Did you make a vision board last year? If the answer is yes, I challenge you to take it out and revamp it. Take a look at all the things you wanted to achieve, and see which ones you accomplished, and replace them with new goals. If you haven’t accomplished them, reflect on the steps you’ve taken to get closer to where you want to be – are you closer now then you were a year ago? It’s important to appreciate the baby steps, as they are so essential to getting you to your end goal. Don’t overlook the details!
If you haven’t ever made a vision board, why not start now? The whole purpose of a vision board is to have your hopes and dreams physically in front of you to see every day, because that gets you more motivated to take steps to reach them every single day. Patters form habits which eventually translate into success. If you need help figuring out how to build your action plan, check out this blog post.
“If your habits don’t line up with your dream, then you need to either change your habits or change your dream.”
– John Maxwell
If you don’t feel like making a vision board, just make a list with two categories:
- What you’ve accomplished this year
- What you still want to accomplish
Make sure to have sub-categories under these two for all the aspects of your life that you deem important, such as health and wellness, fitness, love, friends, career, hobbies, etc.. This helps you to do an internal clean-up of your mind and forces you to figure out what your priorities are, because let’s face it: you won’t change something about yourself unless you know what you’re changing it for.
Recharge
Get motivated! Make sure you’ve bought your planner for 2020, make sure you’ve taken some time off to do things that make you happy, and begin to set yourself up for your new (or old) habits to resume in the new year. Some habits may require a bit more preparation like gym shopping or CV updating, so start now! It’s easiest to set goals and create habits in the new year because of how easy it is to measure results and have a point in time to hold yourself accountable to. If you ever feel discouraged or unmotivated, shoot us a message on our ‘Contact’ page or on our Instagram page for a confidence-booster and reminder that you can do anything you set your mind to. New decade, new rules.
The Struggling Graduate 