How You Can Turn it Around This Year

The start of a new year is a time that often inspires people to change, or at least try to make changes in their lives. If you’ve been wishing you could be happier and more fulfilled but don’t know where to start, there are plenty of blogs, websites, books, and numerous other resources available, all offering solutions to your problems. Which sounds great, but how do you know whose advice to follow?

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

If you genuinely want to turn your life around this year, don’t start by getting overwhelmed by all the helpful advice coming at you from all sides. Focus on your long-term goals, and then break them down into manageable tasks. For instance, you may have a vaguely worded ambition along the lines of “I want to be really fit”, or “I want a better-paid job.” That’s fine, but what are the steps you need to take to achieve your ambition?

Health goals

Health is one of the primary areas in which people long for change; usually wanting to be thinner, stronger, fitter, or to feel better – and very often all four. If this is your ambition, you need to spend some time thinking about the reasons you haven’t already achieved your goals; what is preventing you from sticking to a healthy diet, getting more exercise, or breaking free from smoking and other addictions?

If you can pinpoint what your personal barriers are to taking the essential steps you know you need to, you stand a far better chance of finding a way to overcome the problems and make progress towards your goals. For example, if you have an addiction problem, it’s going to make it very hard for you to make progress with living a healthier lifestyle. Therefore, you need to tackle the blockage by finding an appropriate source of help and support such as Forwardrecovery.com. With the right treatment, you can break the addiction, and that will enable you to move on and focus on the dieting and exercise more successfully.

Career goals

Another major area in which people often wish they were doing better is their job or career. If you wish you had a better paid, more rewarding job, what is preventing you from nailing the recruitment process? What skills do you lack that other applicants have? It could be communication skills; maybe you’re not getting across how valuable you could be to a prospective employer.

You may need to look at adding further qualifications to your CV or getting more experience in certain aspects of your job. Perhaps you need to make contact with the right people or become more involved in the professional organizations associated with your field of work. Until you define what it is that’s holding you back, you can make all the applications in the world and still never move up the career ladder.

These principles apply whatever your ambitions and goals might be. If you feel inspired by the advent of a fresh new year to turn your life around, get to the roots of why it needs turning around and what’s getting in the way of you making progress. Once you’ve dealt with any barriers, you’ll be able to focus on taking actions that will make a positive difference to your future.

This is a collaborative post.