Get Ready For The New Year

When it comes time to get ready for the new year, there often seems to be an expectation that we should be ready to raise a toast at midnight on December 31st with carefully organised lists intact and a clear vision of where we are headed. Yes, most of us like to have a bit of a plan in place to help us get ready for the new year and make the most the clean slate January first provides. However, your goals and plans don’t all have to be in place on that exact date. It is totally okay to take a while to get your thoughts, dreams and goals together.

It’s Important To Get a Feel For the Year

I do like to have some of my plans and goals in place at midnight on New Year’s Eve to help me get ready for the New Year. However, just like many people take a few days to name a child or live in a house for months or years to get a feel for it before decorating, I think we need to get a feel for the year as well. Every year is unique, and the clock striking twelve on New Year’s Eve is only the beginning of us getting to know it. So don’t feel pressured. This is supposed to be fun.

Of course, some people find the idea of setting an arbitrary date like 1 January for a new start simply does not resonate with them. If you are one of them you may find you want to try using these ideas any time you want to declare a new beginning.

Get Ready For the New Year

For many years, I made a practice of setting New Year Aspirations to get ready for the new year. I still like the idea of aspirations, but now I have even more techniques to help me focus, plan and dream my way into the New Year. These are just a few of them. I hope you will pick and choose from these ideas, taking inspiration from the ones that resonate with you and leaving the rest.

1. Check Your Diary Is Up To Date

One of my favourite things to do to help me get ready for the new year is to reconcile my diary. I find the whole exercise curiously satisfying, and it also gives me a sense of anticipation for the year to come.

I have a shared online diary with my family, but I also like to keep a paper diary. This is the second year that I will be using this Legend Planner (affiliate link). I like that it has sections for goals, to do lists, and also spaces for reflection.

Whatever type of diary you choose, have a look at it and check if you have all the main events for 2024 recorded in it. Many electronic diaries put national holidays in automatically, but if you are using a paper diary you may want to check they are also included.

Do you have birthday and anniversary dates for those you want to remember with a card or gift? I like to put reminders in a week or so before the event, depending on how long things will take to arrive if I have to send them by post or courier.

If you have any events or trips planned for the new year, be sure you have them in the diary – and build in time around them so you can get ready.

If you have a significant other, children or other family members, consider having a shared online diary as I do. If you prefer a paper diary – or even if you don’t – you may want to have a diary reconciliation meeting. This will ensure you all have any events that include multiple family members recorded. Make this process fun – how about a “dessert and diary” meeting on a quarterly basis?

2. Choose a Word, Phrase and/or Theme For The Year

I love to choose a word and/or a phrase to help me get ready for the New Year. It helps keep me focused and keeps me living in an atmosphere of growth. Having a family word, phrase or theme for the year can also be a lot of fun.

Need some inspiration?

In 2023, my word was Elevate. I accomplished this by elevating our surroundings with our renovation, elevating my skills by taking some courses and learning new things and elevating my wardrobe with some carefully-thought-out, sustainable investment purchases.

In 2024, I chose two words, Enrich and Savour. I enriched many areas of my life both personally and professionally and I made a bigger effort to be present and truly savour my experiences.

My word for 2025 is THRIVE – and my theme is “Thrive in 2025”. I hope this word and theme will help me stay on track with many of my personal and business goals, including health and fitness, business and creativity.

Do you have a word, phrase or theme for 2025? Please share in the comments!

3. Make a Ta-Da List

In the Happier Podcast, Gretchen Rubin describes this as making a “Ta Da List” – as in “Ta da, I did it!”. I love this idea, and use it throughout the year as well as at the beginning.

Now if you are about to tell me you have nothing to put on a Ta Da List, hold on a moment. We often downplay or diminish our own accomplishments – but if you go back through your calendar month by month, I’m pretty sure you are going to find some things that will sit very nicely on a Ta Da List. 

Whether it is keeping a habit as best you can, trying something new, achieving a goal (however big or small), speaking in public or speaking up for someone else, going somewhere you were worried about or attending a scary meeting – it’s all worth celebrating! So grab a pen and take some time to consider all the things – big or small – that you have accomplished this year.

This is also a great activity to do in the company of a close friend or two over a cup of coffee or lunch. Friends can often help us to see some of the accomplishments we might miss or even gloss over – and it is fun to help others notice the things they forget to give themselves credit for.

4. Get Ready For The New Year with a Vision Board

For the last seventeen years, I have been living in a house that featured on one of my first vision boards many years ago. Vision boards are fun to make, and in my experience, they can definitely work. Of course, there are no guarantees, and not every single thing I have put on a vision board has come into my life yet, but many of them have.

There are so many ways of making a vision board. You can use a scrapbook, a large piece of poster board or an online design package. I made a vision board using Canva last year. However, I also still love the old fashioned way of using photographs and cuttings from magazines and other print media. I collect lots of images of things, experiences and locations I want to bring into my life and then either paste them on a board or into a beautiful scrapbook.

You can make one big vision board or make different vision boards for different areas of your life. A family vision board can be fun too.

Whichever way you choose to collate or display your images, make sure you look at them often. If your vision board is electronic, it could become your screensaver on your computer, laptop or tablet. I make a point of looking through my current vision board book at least once a week to see where I am with manifesting my goals.

4. Make a 25 For 2025 List

Inspired by the Happier podcast, I have been crafting annual lists of the same number of things to do/achieve as the last two numbers of the year since 2018. Back then, it was 18 for 18, and of course it follows that this year, it’s 25 for 25.

The things on your list don’t have to be resolutions as such, although they can be if you like. In previous years, my personal lists have included reaching out by phone or letter to someone at least once a week and replacing my everyday dinnerware. In 2019, my husband and I also had a joint list of 19 for 2019 which was really fun. This included various trips we wanted to take and also a few larger tasks we wanted to accomplish around our home. You can make this idea work for you any way you like. I find it is a great way to get ready for the new year.

Most years I do many of the things on my list, but I do not always achieve all of them. My 20 for 2020 list was understandably a bit hit and miss, with our house renovations in 2023 I only managed eight of my 23 for 23. That is totally okay.

The lists may also evolve as the year goes on, and you can always carry an item over to the following year, or even amend or delete an item you haven’t completed if it no longer resonates with you. You can find out more about these annual lists on Gretchen Rubin’s blog.

5. Get Ready for the New Year – Plan Ways To Be Kind to Yourself

It is so important to treat ourselves with kindness. One of the things I have always struggled with is to learn how to treat myself as kindly as I treat others, and I know I am not alone! It can help to plan self-care, even putting it in your diary. So whether that is making time to read, take a walk, give yourself a manicure or put your feet up with a face mask and watch your favourite television show, be sure you allocate some time for it to actually happen.

January does not have to be a month of deprivation. Enjoy delicious, comforting dinners and a few treats too. My Recipe Index is a great place for inspiration.

Need more ideas? Check out Be Kind To Yourself for lots of hints and tips on how to make being kind to yourself easier (and fun too). Let’s all make 2025 the year we remember to treat ourselves gently and with kindness.

Wishing You An Amazing 2025

It’s never too late to incorporate any of these ideas into your year – regardless of whether it’s January or the middle of June. Wishing you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year – and if this article finds you later in the year, I hope your 2025 is going really well for you!

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