Start the Year with a Positive Mindset

We hear this a lot, ‘New Year, New You’, What's your New Year Resolutions? etc, but before you start making long term committtments, maybe it's a good time to reevaluate how you really feel and work towards a healthy mindset first.

Recognise your current mindset

In order to create a positive mindset, you'll first need to do a raincheck on where you currently are and tackle any negative voices in your head. For example when you’re taking on a challenge, does a little voice inside your head say, ‘are you sure you can do this? or "you're wasting your time here mate, why even bother"? If you listen to these voices you'll be doomed before you even start. A negative mindset plants doubts in your mind about your abilities, remember the first step to changing that voice of doubt is recognising it.

Start talking back

The second step is to nurture a more positive mindset by knowing how to answer back these doubts. You’ll need to directly address the mindset you already have and respond to it. It’s not enough to simply ignore it because while you think you’re not paying it any attention, your subconscious is lapping it up.

When your inner voice tries to plant doubt, have an answer for it. Tell yourself why you CAN do this. Remind yourself why you shouldn’t doubt your own abilities.

Look at what you’ve learned

A negative mindset is usually a dab hand at throwing previous failures to the forefront of your mind to remind you of your weakness and to plant doubt in your mind, but it’s important for you to realise that it’s quite the opposite.

As part of answering those negative thoughts about failure, you should recognise your mistakes and failures, and acknowledge what you’ve learned from them and how making the mistakes have benefited you in the long run. So, focus on taking the positives from them.

Equally, it’s important to reflect on your past achievements, sometimes it's easy to forget about them. Write down everything you were proud of doing last year or in previous years to feed your positive mindset now.

Challenge yourself with actions

As the old adage goes, practice makes perfect, so now it might be a good time to think about challenges that you might enjoy now. Selecting challenges wisely will help to exercise you new positive mindset.

Write down a list containing small, manageable goals and include some long-term goals too if you like.

Be flexible with your goals

Not everything will go to plan all the time, so just be careful when it comes to having end dates. It's no harm if you have to spend the entire year or longer chipping away at some goals and remember what we said about making mistakes? There’s a lesson in everything you do, so don’t let struggles or knock backs along the way be an excuse to give up on your new goals.

If you realise halfway through that a particular goal is a little unrealistic, move the goalposts - remember who's in charge here, they’re your goals, after all, nothing is set in stone.

Re-evaluate yourself along the way

Check in on yourself regularly, set reminders in your calander. There's no hard doing a little check, but again remember you should not beat yourself up, just realign the goals and celebrate any milestones you have achieved.

When it comes to work or career related goals, many people can be guilty of waiting for an annual performance review to evaluate how they are getting on. As part of your new positive mindset, it’s important to evaluate your own performance often - don't wait for the boss to guide or praise you, take control yourself. You should not simply be evaluating your performance based on what your employer’s goals are, set your own pace and personal goals for your career success.

And remember to check in with your mindset regularly too, how's those voices going, are you answering back? Your work-life balance and your mental health are very important - if you are struggling don't be afraid to see professional help.

Be kind to yourself

Being kind to yourself is very important, look after yourself in 2023. Make sure to give yourself the space and time you need to stay healthy. You might have people who depend on you and work committments that you need to focus on, but you will be no good to anyone if you are not feeling good yourself.

So, when you're ready to sit down and make that resolution list go easy on yourself, make sure there's items on the list that will make you feel good. Best of Luck!