It’s already the middle of January, but it isn’t too late to find your balance again or to set new goals after the holidays. I’ve been lucky to have help taking down Christmas decorations (typically on New Year’s Day, although it sometimes varies if my adult kids are visiting). For me, taking down decorations is always an important part of moving on to a new season.
Here are my other main ways to find balance and move on into the New Year:
Take time to reflect on your life. This is a great time to spend at least a few extra minutes each day in prayer or meditation as you decide if you like the direction in which you’re heading. You’ll find more ideas on taking time for yourself here: Take a 30-Minute or 5-Minute Me-Break.
Set goals or challenges for yourself. I rarely make New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve fallen in love with 30-day challenges. If I miss a month, I can easily start a new one the next month. And it only requires 15 minutes a day … something that feels doable. Here are some ideas (and word-art freebies) for setting goals and challenges: It Isn’t too Late to Set Goals and Challenges.
If you have a friend or relative to help support you in your goals, even better! I actually only ate healthy, vegan meals over Christmas when my kids and kids-in-love visited during my daughter’s 6-Month Nutrition and Fitness Experiment. I wasn’t totally sugar-free and gluten-free, but I was able to help and be helped. That was great incentive to start a healthy New Year, too!
Keep things relaxed, and don’t be afraid to start over if necessary. I had to stay flexible and relaxed when I homeschooled my kids through high school, or I wouldn’t have made it through to high school graduation. By keeping things relaxed, my whole family loved it. My homeschooling efforts were far from perfect, but they worked out perfectly for my family. Here’s my post on How to Be a Relaxed Homeschooler with ideas you can adapt for homeschooling, blogging, or any long-term project that affects your family.
Have a relaxed and awesome year! 🙂
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I’ve been told it takes 21 days to create a new habit, so it would make sense that 30-day challenges are just about right (enough to allow a little grace!).
I enjoyed your article on relaxed homeschooling, because that’s a goal for our family, too. I love the idea of choosing activities intuitively.
Thanks, Lauren! When I think of how many activities I had to choose from back when I was homeschooling and the number of readily accessible activities today, it’s totally mind-boggling. I’m glad I got in the habit of choosing activities somewhat intuitively back then because I can’t imagine trying to logically choose activities today. 😉
Thanks for your post, and your advice about setting goals for yourself and the nutrition experiment. We have just found out my husband is coeliac, so the link to the post about nutrition is really helpful for us as we are now all hoping to cut out a lot of wheat and gluten from our diet, to make us all healthier happier people.
Thanks so much! My daughter has had amazing results with her nutrition experiment … I hope cutting out gluten really helps your family, too. 🙂
I hadn’t really thought about 30 day challenges in that way before but I think I’m going to start one… even if it is the middle of January! Great article.
Thanks, Jackie! I think I started my first one in the middle of the month, too. It’s amazing how something new can always be found for a new challenge. 🙂
I love 30 day challenges. we are doing one right now with my girls and they love it. Plus I have my own personal 30 day goal as well.
I love the 30-day challenge you’re doing, Cassie! It’s awesome that you have challenges for yourself as well as a family challenge! 🙂
The 30 day challenges sound like fun, manageable chunks. I saw a link-up floating around awhile back that I wish I had had time to join. Maybe I’ll just have to jump on the bandwagon a little late 🙂
I’m totally sold on 30-day challenges, Dionna! I could never last through a New Year’s resolution, but 30 days is really the perfect length of time. It’s amazing how many positive habits I’ve developed from my 30-day challenges, too. 🙂
30 day challenges are fab! I love how it breaks the year up in to more attainable goals. I’m thinking we might need to start a 30 day challenge for natural parents!
I totally agree about 30-day challenges being fab, Gretchen! They’re definitely more attainable, and I get a lot more done in a year with 30-day challenges. They somehow seem to make time last a bit longer. 🙂
I love your point that it’s never too late to start. It wasn’t until after January started that I really started reflecting on things I would like to work on this year. We are actually in the middle of No Spend Month right now, but there are many other challenges I would like to try like eating no processed food, shopping only locally, etc.
Thanks, Shannon! No Spend Month sounds like a great challenge. You have some awesome ideas … they would be perfect for 30-day challenges! 🙂
I loved the whole theme of this post… just relax. 2013 started off so busily for myself, that I have hardly had time to think of new years resolutions! I like the idea of a 30 day challenge, going to read all your links now 🙂
Thanks so much, Christine! New years do have a tendency to start off too quickly, don’t they?! I hope you have fun trying 30-day challenges! 🙂
I love the 30 day challenge idea. I think I’m unofficially doing that with kicking my java habit (I’m not sure how much longer I can go, haha).
I often think in terms of intentions for the year as things I would like to remember that are important to me, and I like doing One Little Word http://aliedwards.com/one-little-word as a direction I’d like to go in the year or a guiding principal for the year.
Thanks so much for your comment, Christy! The One Little Word is a wonderful idea! 🙂
I love ‘don’t be afraid to start over if necessary’. My father in law always says if you ‘fail’ today, you try again tomorrow (in more eloquent words I can’t think of right now!). You are so right!
Thanks, Luschka! I hope you’ve had an awesome 2013 so far. 🙂