Cleaning the Slate Before the New Year
Doing these three things will help you get past the last decade and set the stage for the year ahead.
Everyone wants to start the new year with a fresh book- without problems from the last year (or in this case decade). However, the question of how is perplexing. How to let go of the built up anger, frustrations, and disappointments. The task of cleaning physical space seems difficult enough, let alone dealing with the emotional stuff.
December 1st officially starts my Happiness Year. It’s a project that I found from Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project. The project is a series of 12 months with a guiding word and several smaller goals. The focus in all of these goals is transforming the space and aspects in our lives to allow for more light, love and happiness.
I feel that a good cleanse is in order before seeking happiness in 2020. Here’s my three step strategy to doing that. It’s a framework that is easy to tweak, adapt and use.
Let Go of 100 Things
Years ago, a popular trend in the minimalist movement was trying the experiment from Dave Bruno called the 100 thing challenge. The idea was to simplify personal possessions by living with only 100 things or less. While some of the items could be grouped (I would never live with only 1 pen!), it was more of an experiment to see if life got easier with less.
I’ve thought about living for short periods of time with 100 things. I find the idea appealing and might actually try it in 2020. However, I found that Courtney Carver’s Reverse 100 Thing Challenge to be more relevant to my life. She advocates for letting go of 100 things at a time. This would be a good way either to start or to finish decluttering.
I’ve been downsizing my possessions for over 5 years at this point. I’ve done almost everything from letting go of one thing per day to the Minimalist challenge (letting go of the corresponding amount of items per day for 30 days resulting in letting go of 1,000 items).
Decluttering always gives a boost to your space and letting things go feels freeing. Having less relieves some of the pressure and tension we feel on a daily basis. It also gives us more room for the things that will be ahead. It is a mental reboot: by letting things go, we open ourselves for other and better things.
This will be my last organized declutter. After a decade of letting things go, I don’t have a lot of things that don’t matter: that I don’t find beautiful or useful. This is not to say that I will never let another thing go, but instead implies that it will not be an organized attempt.
Let go of one emotional or mental thing per day that has disturbed your inner peace
Letting go can take many forms.
Maybe you have a list of things that don’t serve your better mental health but you refuse to let go of and carry around. Letting go of one of the things on the list per day proves to be a challenge, but a worthwhile one.
Maybe you just want to pray for a person you don’t like every day and wish them well.
Maybe one day you just want to patch up a relationship one of the days and get past a fight or a misunderstanding.
The adage of unforgiveness being a poison is often overstated, but it’s true. You’re not hurting the person you can’t forgive. You’re not causing that person discomfort. What you are doing instead is stealing your own peace of mind and joy. They might not even be bothered by the disagreement, but in clearing things up, you take that pressure off your own mind.
For me, this is going to take the form of praying for a person I don’t like every day.
In this instance, I could choose to pray for one person every day (which I’ve done in the past- it was a healing experience) or choose a few people I have had small fall outs with over the past year or so and rotate them. I’m going to be doing the latter.
I will be writing a very small list of names in my Happy Planner for each week and choosing a name off the list. I plan to pray for them to be prosperous, full of good health and well being in the year ahead.
I’m trusting the process that this will be a giant release of anger and frustration.
Maybe it’s not people at all that seem to be the issue, maybe it’s situations. Maybe you are the person that is keeping you from being your best self. In that instance, I would encourage you to still choose one thing per day to think through, write about, process and let go.
Another way to go about this is to choose a 31 day challenge to tackle the biggest obstacle and complete it. Choose something that you know is a continual struggle for you and break it down day by day.
Do a Year End Recap and Plan the Year Ahead
Doing a year end recap can really help to process what has gone before. Doing a year end recap before finalizing goals for the year ahead can be informative, inspiring, and beneficial to planning.
My year end recap involves going through each month, writing the things I remember. I look for common themes. I do a unbucket list where I list everything that I’ve accomplished within the last year. I also go through a list of questions that I go through at the end of each year.
Since this is a new decade, it might also be beneficial to write a end of decade letter. Where were you at the beginning of 2010? What has changed massively? Has anything stayed the same? What lessons have you learned over the past decade and what would you tell your younger self?
Once the recap process is done, start to write your goals for 2020. Maybe you’ve been thinking about these for the past two months. Maybe you already have a lot of ideas that you just need to summarize and narrow down on.
I tend to use a Pinterest board that I start in November labeled “20__ Vision Board”. I pin the things that catch my eye that might be a new year goal. I don’t hold back. I pin everything related to various ideas I’ve heard or even just things that I know in my heart I want to work on.
The one question that I pay the most attention to every year is Wouldn’t it be crazy if?
It’s a question that I read in Courtney Carver’s book Soulful Simplicity. When asking the question, don’t hold back. Let your imagination run wild and come up with at least 10–15 ideas. Look at the ideas and narrow it down. Keep 2–3. These are your biggest dreams for the New Year.
Doing these three things will make the transition into the New Year easier. They will help to deal with the last year and it’s carnage. They also help to set the stage for better things in the New Year. Letting go invites new and better things to settle into our lives. We can’t accept the new things life wants to give us if our hands are still full from last year’s problems and other stuff.
