So This Is The New Year

However you’re feeling about the new year is okay – you get to decide how to start 2023 on your terms.

We’ve always been amused by the holiday song that begins, “So this is Christmas,” because of its ambivalent vibe, like, “Welp, I guess this is happening.” But this opening line actually captures how we feel about the start of 2023.

In this episode, we talk about framing our intentions for the new year at a time when we’re both dealing with some big challenges and not feeling 100% peppy. However you’re feeling about the new year – excited, apprehensive, optimistic, overwhelmed, or a blend of emotions – is okay. You get to decide how to start this new year the way that’s right for you and feel what you feel about it, no matter what anyone else is doing.

Listener Takeaways

If you are also feeling ambivalent about the new year – we feel you! Life is a lot, and we are happy to give you permission not to feel optimistic or motivated or whatever you’re “supposed” to feel right now.

But if you feel like marking the start of a new year with a ritual, here are a few things you can consider:

Choose a theme, a word, a mantra (or several!) that you want to focus on throughout the year. Write it down somewhere, like in your journal or on a sticky note in a visible place. Change them out during the year if it feels right.

Make a list of one thing you’d like to do each month this year. Gill is considering doing this but only including things she truly wants to do, no shoulds or regular to-do’s allowed.

If you still have magazines in your house, create a vision collage, which we talk about in more detail in Ep 62. It can be a fun and relaxed way to think about what you want more of in your year. If it gives you any anxiety or angst like it did for Gill this year, just skip it!

Do something small that brings you joy and helps you celebrate where you are right now. Buy a book you’ve been wanting to read, eat your favorite meal, open a bottle of wine, meet up with a friend for coffee, lock yourself in a quiet room where no one can talk to you for 10 minutes. You decide!