Happy new year! This week on the podcast is all about restoration—how to recuperate from a real dumpster fire of a year and restore yourself in mind, body, and spirit. Because you deserve it. Today’s big idea is that New Year’s Day is a super potent time for following a foolproof strategy for a great year that will set the tone for the rest of the year.
Listen To The Podcast Here
Begin How You Aim To Continue
When you have a baby and you read all the sleep training books (unless you have a magical baby who is a naturally great sleeper), there’s a piece of advice they all give, and that is to begin how you aim to continue.
In terms of sleep training, that advice means don’t start off by bouncing the baby to sleep unless you want to have to bounce that baby to sleep every nap-time and bedtime.
I just have to point out that I discovered this advice too late! And had in fact started off bouncing my first baby to sleep for every nap-time and bedtime. Oh man did I start to really hate that exercise ball!! It took some undoing, and some acceptance on my part that if I didn’t bounce her to sleep and put her down when she was still awake, that she would babble for up to an hour before she finally passed out. And we did get on a new track, but it really took a lot of physical, mental, and emotional energy on my part.
Since this new year is a brand new baby today, I hope that by listening to this episode you can begin on a track that you like and that’s sustainable, and then you’ll can follow a foolproof strategy for a great year like it’s no big deal.
Daily Tiny Assignment
Your tiny assignment is to do something on this first day of 2021 that blazes a trail for how you’d like the rest of the year to go. And if you encounter this episode on a day that’s NOT January 1—just trust that whenever you hear this it’s the perfect time for you to start.
Because I know that figuring out what to do that paves the way for a good rest of the year can feel a little daunting—what if I choose wrong?!—I’ve got a foolproof strategy for a great year for how to think about what that thing might be. And that is, to do something loving for yourself.
This week is about restoration, after all, and loving yourself is a key piece of bringing yourself back to wholeness.
This loving thing could be one thing, or a lot of things.
It could be eating plenty of vegetables. Or getting some exercise. Or connecting with someone you love. But it might also mean NOT doing something, like saying no to an invitation, or not answering the phone when someone who drains your energy calls.
I can’t tell you exactly what to do, I can only offer the guidance to do something loving for yourself today. Because by doing so, you’re paving the way for you to continue doing loving things for yourself the whole year through. And frankly, you deserve it. Also, people learn how to treat you—and themselves—by observing how you treat yourself. So if you need a little extra incentive to really put this idea into practice, there you go. It doesn’t just benefit you, it helps the people around you be more loving, too. To you, to themselves, and to others.
