Make 2025 your best year yet!

During the two weeks break over Christmas and New Year I had time to consider the lessons and advice I have received from mentors, clients, candidates, and my own personal experiences.  This list summaries this advice and I pass it on as a challenge to you to think about how you can make 2025 your best year yet. (NB, I strive to do these but don’t always achieve it, so don’t punish yourself in striving for perfection – it isn’t attainable).

1. Every morning prepare a list of the 3 most important things you must do that day that will have the biggest impact. Each day you have 86,400 seconds to spend wisely, waste one second and you can never get it back. The list helps you to unclutter and forces you to prioritise.
2. Adopt a 10-year test –Often when facing tough situations, it can seem like a disaster or catastrophe. It is critical to maintain perspective on each issue as often they are only a slight bump in your journey through life. So, when you run into tough situations, instead of panicking, ask yourself, will this matter in 10 days? 10 months? 10 years? Chances are it won’t. Don’t sweat the small stuff and keep your eye on the bigger picture.
3. Strive to learn one new thing a day – Push yourself to grow every single day. It could be a list of new habits (wink wink), a new language, a skill or insight. If you improved just a little bit every single day, think of how that effect compounds over a year. The impact becomes dramatic over time.
4. Batch emails.It is so easy to get distracted by the thousand emails that come into your inbox throughout the day. Instead of having notifications of each email on and checking everyone as they come in, batch them and check them at certain times throughout the day. You will be more efficient and productive and not get distracted from the task you were undertaking when the email arrived.  An old colleague used to have a reply to each email which stated “Please note that I only check my email at 9am and 3pm, so if your email requires urgent attention please call me on my mobile”.
5. Work out in the morning –It’s so simple but effective. Your energy will be much better, for the rest of the day and your health will be better for it. I’m not perfect, but on the days that I do it, I feel like a completely new person. Speaking of good morning habits…
6. Practice gratitude –Every morning (or night), tell yourself 3 things that you’re grateful for that day. This will increase your happiness. Another way to do this is to write it on post its and to put it into a jar. Anytime you’re feeling down or stuck, just take out one of the post it notes and read it.
7. Be selective who you spend time with –only spend some of your 86,400 seconds each day with work colleagues, friends and family that lift you up and inspire you to live the best life possible.  Surround yourself with positivity and uplifting people. If someone in your life brings negativity, consider creating some distance. Protect your energy and focus on what brings you joy and growth.  Strive to be around people that bring out the best in you and help you shine.
8. Have a bias towards experimenting –A lot of times we don’t know what the right answer is. What’s the best way to find out? Experiment. Test your ideas and have a bias towards taking actions to find out what will work. Procrastination is the death of all ideas, so what if you failed at least, you tried and will have learnt a lesson in the process.

Make 2025 your best year yet!