“Be Yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Oscar Wilde
The New Year, 2023 has already picked up the pace. Everyone is busy in their own worlds moving ahead with learnings from 2022 by letting bygones be bygones, having the right intentions, and belief in self.
“Jo beet gaya woh beet gaya.
Kuch de kar gaya, kuch sikha kar gaya.
Ek sabak sikha gaya, Ek salah de gaya.
Kyon na sab jod kar, Banayein ek naya kal.
Beete kal ki ibaadton se …..”
January every year gives every individual that spark to believe “New year, New me”. But truthfully, we all have the habit of lingering in the past. In order to become a new version of oneself, one needs to move ahead. Past grudges to let go, mistakes to be learned from and rectified.
As a professional counsellor, I believe one of the reasons why we all fail to achieve the concept of a “New year, New me” is because we don’t have a plan. Everyone has New Year resolutions but not many people genuinely work on achieving those resolutions. There are multiple methods or habits that can contribute toward achieving those resolutions successfully or at least becoming a much better version of yourself by the end of this year.
Moving ahead with learnings from the Year gone by – 2022
While moving ahead does mean not lingering in the past, it is also important to look back and write down the mistakes or tough decisions made. Any desire such as wanting to get into a good college, lose weight or improve mental and physical health, can be achieved by first finding out what to do differently from last time. Write down what decisions were made last year, what was the outcome, and how could the outcome have been better than what was achieved.
Right intentions and belief in self
Believing in yourself is completing half the journey. But this half journey is fuelled mostly based on motivation. The hard truth is that motivation always gets you halfway. So, getting through the full journey can only be achieved with the right intentions always kept in mind.
Some of the things that help complete this journey of self-improvement and finally living up to “New year, New me” are as mentioned below:
1. Discipline Over Motivation
Motivation is a factor that always gets a person charged up but discharges also rather quickly. Every year, on 1st January the gym is filled with new faces but as one week passes, the faces reduce and ultimately finish. The only thing that separates a winner from the quitter is hard work and discipline. There will be days when one doesn’t feel motivated to study or to go to the gym. But discipline is the driving factor that hardwires our mind into putting in the work regardless of how we feel at that moment. Discipline is the only thing that can create anyone to work productively everyday no matter what the situation.
2. Road Map/ Action Plan
One very important resource that is required to do so is to have a roadmap physically present for that goal. Having a roadmap that is physically present acts as a constant reminder for your tasks to be performed in order to achieve progress towards your goal. One way that has proven to be effective for generations is to STICK UP NOTES AT A PLACE CONSTANTLY IN YOUR SIGHT. It can be a pinboard, your laptop screen or the wall in front of your study table. Having to write down tasks to create a constantly visible reminder on a daily basis helps improve productivity and logical reasoning ability.
3. Reduce Distractions
As part of today’s modern generation, there are multiple distractions online and offline which causes the youth to become complacent and divert from the path to achieve success. Those distractions can be anything like Instagram reels, binge-watching on OTT platforms, pornography, Video Games, ill-usage of cigarettes, drugs, alcohol & caffeine, and eating a lot of junk food. A lot of brain and body drain has been the result of these distractions becoming addictions. Trick is to time these distractions by setting timers. Timers will help in reminding to be back on the main task.
4. Cardiovascular exercise everyday: Sports, Combat Sports, Weight lifting
The activity of learning and sticking to one sport, whether recreational or combat sport, instills a level of emotional control and discipline that helps a person make rational decisions even when facing adversity. Apart from the mental benefit that exercise has on the human mind, it also holds an immense physical benefit. Exercise has been notably seen to help tackle multiple health problems like heart attacks, obesity, and anorexia and also build overall muscular strength and lung capacity.
5. Read about things apart from Education
The modern world has brought in ways of creating modern wealth and knowledge as well. With paradigm shifts yet to be implemented in the education system, it is up to each individual to enrich their knowledge and develop the perspicacity to deal with any topic of issue. It might just help in developing unorthodox and much more efficient solutions to some of the problems we deal in life.
6. Avoid wasting time over matters you hold no control or influence
The modern world has lot of modern problems. A lot of time wastage is happening in addressing the problem but no solution is provided. So for any problem that you may see or face in your life, it is important to ask yourself questions like,
- “Does this problem really affect me and my way of life?”
- “If it does affect me, what can I do to make a positive change towards this problem?”
- “If it doesn’t affect me, what else can I do which will be constructive towards my growth?”
A lot of time and energy can be saved by gauging out the issue and deciding whether it is worth worrying about or not.
7. Question things to escape the herd mentality
For various goals, there might be generalized solutions and ideas. However, to shine in the crowd build the habit of asking right questions. It will help you make every generalized solution a better one.
8. Learn life skills
It is important for every individual to learn to become independent in various aspects of life. The education system teaches us technical skills for landing a job but life skills can only come through the different experiences one goes through in life. Learn to play an instrument, how to cook, how to defend yourself and so much more.
Life is beautiful, it has varied Colours, so pick up the brush and paint your own canvas!
It would be a pleasure to know your thoughts on how are you planning your remaining year.
- In case you feel you are stuck inspite of best of your efforts. You have a spiral of thoughts in your head and you are not clear of the way ahead then feel free to contact me. Let’s talk.