You might not want to think about it yet, but 2019 is a mere two and half months away. The thing is, as Benjamin Franklin so rightly said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”
Rather than coast your way to the end of the year, use the time to plan ahead. Think about what you’d like to achieve and how you’ll make that happen. Too often we view November and December as a time to take things a little easier.
“I’ll get to that in January,” we say to ourselves as we slouch a little lower at our desk, and click play on yet another YouTube compilation of people doing stupid stuff. It might be entertaining, but if you want to achieve your goals, that’s not the way to do it.
From decluttering, working on becoming debt-free and getting clear on health goals, there are plenty of things we can start doing right now to make 2019 our best year ever. Let’s get started!
Clean Up Your Messes and Incompletes
In his book, The Success Principles, Jack Canfield talks about cleaning up your messes and incompletes. His theory is that you can’t expect to make a success of new endeavors without first tying up loose ends.
Cleaning up your messes and incompletes is pretty much a surefire way to guarantee a great year. Do this on a monthly basis, and December 2019 will be a breeze, because you’ll have nothing hanging over your head by the time it arrives.
Improve your Diet
With the Holidays looming, it’s tempting to let your healthy habits slide and overindulge on pumpkin spice lattés, party food and umbrella drinks. How can you not, with all those office parties and family get-togethers?
But wouldn’t you much rather greet the New Year in a healthier body?
If you’re happy with where you are health-wise, make a pact with yourself to stay that way. And if you could do to improve your diet, don’t wait for January to do it. You can still eat Christmas cake, just refrain from eating the whole thing.
Get Uncluttered
Clutter takes many forms: physical, digital, mental and even emotional. Use the next couple of months to get completely uncluttered. Make a commitment to yourself that when January arrives, you will be clutter-free.
It’s easiest to start with physical clutter. Go through your house, room by room, and get rid of everything you no longer need. Remember, you also need to declutter the less obvious areas, like the basement, attic, garage and garden shed.
When your house is fit for the cover of Garden & Home, it’s time to start tackling the less obvious areas, such as digital clutter, mental clutter, sentimental clutter, and so on. They might not be as straightforward to tackle as, say, the hall closet, but you can certainly make inroads into ‘downsizing’ them before the year is over.
Downsize Your Debt
How are your finances? Do you look at your bank balance through your fingers a week into the month? (Been there, done that.) Now is the time to make a belt-tightening budget and start working on lowering your debt.
Put your credit cards away, stop buying random stuff online, and quit the morning coffee run. This time of year has a way of making us lose common sense. We often end up spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need, simply because there’s a festive feeling in the air.
Depending on how far in the red you are, being debt-free by January might not be a realistic goal. That’s fine. The point is to see in the New Year with less debt, not more. Check out these TED Talks on living a debt-free lifestyle for inspiration.
GET CLEAR ON YOUR GOALS
The reason most of us (myself included) fall short on our New Year’s resolutions is because we don’t get clear enough on what we actually want to achieve. Stating a vague intention to be slimmer, healthier, richer, nicer or whatever will get you nowhere fast.
The other problem with setting goals for the year ahead is that we generally leave it to the last minute. Thinking about what you want to accomplish on January first is both unproductive and overwhelming.
Using Warren Buffet’s 5/25 Rule, take the time now to get clear on your goals for the year ahead. Once you know what you’d like to achieve, you can start taking steps towards making that happen.
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