SAY GOODBYE THE SMART WAY

For many people, January is for resolutions. They make their lists, they publicly or privately state their goals and get started moving towards them. It’s laudable to want to add healthy habits to your life, but what do you do with the ones you already have that aren’t serving you? It’s time for a life audit followed by an edit. We don’t need an official from an organization to come into our lives and inspect us to know that we’re sticking to old beliefs, carrying extra mental and emotional baggage and hoarding items we don’t need. We just need to make some time and space over the course of the coming weekends to take stock and reassess what we want to carry forward into the new year.

I have always been a fan of breaking up big goals into smaller manageable milestones, but I am even a bigger fan of purging, decluttering and generally getting rid of things. I regularly delete unnecessary files from my computer, throw away stuff at home and donate any clothing that I haven’t worn in a while. Discarding old habits, thoughts and patterns is just part of that process, and perhaps the most important. You still have a few weekends to go before 2021 bids us farewell, so schedule some time for yourself to take stock of where you are and how it makes you feel.

Challenge your thoughts
Negative and mistrustful thoughts are quite common. Many of us automatically think that bad things will happen and that people are out to get us. But sadly, that only becomes a reality because you are thinking about it. Most people we meet will be trustworthy and neutral towards us and you probably have an equal chance of having good or bad things happening to you. The first step to break this cycle is to notice it when it happens, then challenge it. Instead of thinking: My friends must hate me, ask yourself to come up with actual evidence of this. If you always assume that the sky will fall, remind yourself of all of the times it didn’t. Your life will not change overnight, but if you stick to it, you will eventually find yourself happier and more open to life. If these thoughts are too difficult to handle on your own, it might be time to seek professional help instead.

Don’t get stuck in the past
Doing things just because “that’s how we’ve always done them” is perhaps the easiest rut to get stuck in. It could be a boring job, wearing the same clothes or meeting your friends at the same spot every week. Notice the things you do on autopilot and challenge them. Maybe you can do things differently. Ask for new responsibilities at work, move your clothes in your closet so you can’t easily reach for your favorite jeans and make a list of interesting places you would like to go to with your friends. Help yourself by making changes easier. The world will not give you what you want unless you reach out and grab it.

Don’t worry too much about the future
If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that we have very little control over the future, but what we can do is tweak the present. There’s a huge difference between planning for the future (which is great) and being paralized by it (terrible). Focus on today, on this moment, it’s the only one that you have direct control over. Take a deep breath and choose to enjoy it even if it is difficult, tomorrow will come anyway and who knows, you might even realize that it is a good day. Just do your best today and everyday and trust the process to work.

Photo by Estúdio Bloom on Unsplash.

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