Your New Year really Starts Now! – The Mental Well-Being Coach
Everyone knows I’m a big fan of goal setting and I know that January 1st is the day we all talk about as the new year in western cultures but I changed my mind about setting all my new years goals at the start of January some time back in favour of the Chinese New Year because it just felt energetically more correct.
For me, when January 1st comes round too soon. It’s winter, it’s dark and it’s usually cold here in the UK. I have an urge to hibernate. We may have a break at Christmas, if we’re lucky, but often that break is filled with all sorts of busyness of its own. So when January 1st comes round, my energy levels are never in a place to light a fire under my life and start anything new. The Chinese new year starts each year on the 2nd New Moon after the Winter Equinox. Medieval England used to start the new year around the time of the spring equinox ancient traditions. It makes so much sense to me instinctually that we’d start the new year in alignment with the spring season where the natural world seems to come back to life after the winter but don’t forget just because we can’t see the life below the surface doesn’t mean it isn’t stirring and being nurtured ready to burst forth in spring so I like the idea that the mid point of the winter is when life starts gearing up and I feel it somehow.
January feels reflective to me. It feels like the right month to take check of what’s working and what needs to change and so I use January as my contemplation month. Let’s face it so many New Year’s resolutions are binned off by the end of January because they were rushed decisions made because we all need New Year’s resolutions and we tried and because the energy wasn’t there and they just stop. I am like anyone else in that regard but now I treat those resolutions as experiments that I know may fail at but which I can later commit to adapting and refining over this dark month. Expect to fail but commit to finding a way around the failures until something works. So now I plant seeds of change in January, some of them just mentally. I play with the idea of doing something or for other things I might start a few new things but always with a view to them just being early experiments in whatever change I’m wanting to make. I want to see which seeds have the potential to really grow and which need more reflection.
By the end of January I have a list of things I’ve thought about and I’ve tried, some of which I’ve outright failed at but that’s ok because by the time Chinese new year comes (usually between 21st Jan & 20th Feb) I have an idea of why something didn’t work and can come up with a new plan and I always find I have a lot more mental and physical energy by this point in the year.
So for those of you who made new year resolutions who are already off track with your traditional new year goals here is your new chance to check in and make a new commitment based off the evidence you now have. You may feel you failed but you actually you found out the valuable information of what doesn’t work for you, and the opportunity to find something that does.
- What goals did you set for this year?
- Tried and failed already?
- Didn’t bother setting any?
Here is your chance to recommit to the changes you know you want to make this year!
Try this exercise as a refresh:
- Write a list of things you want to leave behind in 2025.
Relegate the self doubt, the imposter syndrome, the people pleasing, or whatever you no longer have energy for.
Read the list to yourself then destroy it your focus is now on the new.
- Write a list of what you want to move towards this year. What do you want to feel, think, do to improve your life?
This is a now a forward looking list of things you can start to find ways to take action on. In the next few weeks you can break them down in to daily habit experiments and practical steps but this is about setting your direction.
This year is the year of the Fire Horse. This is a year for action and for transformation so energetically the universe is on board to help you with whatever you are working towards.
#ChineseNewYear #firehorse #2026Goals #lifecoaching
