There’s something about an impending new year that makes me feel excited and motivated. One of my favourite things to do is to plan and organise so it’s no surprise really that I look forward to starting a brand new year. I never wait until January to start making plans, I like to wake up on the 1st raring to get going on my goals.

There are so many things you can do now to get the year off to a great start, you could set goals, make travel plans or get more organised.  I thought I would share with you some ideas about the things you can do to plan for a happy and successful new year.

Financial

Planning finances and a budget for the new year is top of my list when it comes to planning. I recommend looking at each month and making a budget. You could use a budget calculator to work out your household income and outgoings, this is a really great way to keep on track. Once you work out a budget you can start planning other financial goals like savings or debt repayment.

Setting financial goals will really help to keep you motivated to reach them. I try to split big goals up into smaller bite-size chunks, using the 1% method and spreadsheets to track my progress.

Family

Getting the whole family together to discuss what you want to achieve in the new year. It’s important to take on board the views and ideas of the whole family. It’s lots of fun to sit down as a family and plan any bucket lists you want to make together, we split ours up by the seasons.

Again work through each month, making note of birthdays, anniversaries and any other celebrations. I like to add in a few events and fun days out throughout the year to give us something to look forward to. It’s also a great time to make travel plans for the year ahead, there are lots of discounts available so you should be able to bag a few bargains.

Personal

I think almost everyone starts to think about the things they would like to improve or change about themselves at this time of year. Each year I used to vow that this would be my year to finally shed the weight, after lots of unsuccessful years I realised I needed to change the way that I set my personal goals. I’m much more realistic nowadays and break my goals down into 90-day cycles.

I choose four areas of self-improvement and work on one at a time, so the first 90 days of the year I might focus on my physical health then once I’ve achieved that I might move on to something like mental health. During the planning process, I find it useful to answer some questions to find out which areas I really want to focus on like:

What habit do I want to break?

What habit would I like to make?

What relationships do I want to work on? 

What things can I stop saying yes to? 

What makes me happy? 

What things make me unhappy? 

What fear would you like to overcome? 

You can make your own list and jot down your thoughts in a diary, journal or even on a scrap bit of paper. I like to revisit my goals once a month to see if I want to add anything new and to tick off any goals I’ve achieved. You don’t need to think of these things as resolutions but more of a master list of all the things you would personally like the achieve.

Whatever your plans and goals are for the new year I hope they are successful ones.

Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.