Looking Forward at You for 2020

Happy New Year!

Just a quick one this month now we are nearing the back end of the Christmas holiday period and arrived not just in a new year but a new decade – 2020!!! 

Whilst Januarys are traditionally plagued with sales, long awaited pay days, firm and unrealistic resolutions that are recited in harmony with last year’s attempts, echoes throughout the New Year morning. However, this month’s blog will be to look closely at ourselves in order to prepare for the year ahead.  You may have achieved your goals from last year and this may be celebrated by helping someone this year benefitting from your examples.  If not, this year gives you another opportunity to ask someone to help you or seek out services in your chosen field.

One of my favourite quotes by Helen Keller is ‘The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.’  Having no vision, having no plans, having no aim as to what, where, when, who or why you are, leaves you vulnerable to poor mental health. 

We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.  Proverbs 16:9 (NLT)   Make yourself a plan so that God shape your steps.  Now we have made preparation for a plan how do we keep up the momentum and the vision of January through to December???

Here are 3 simple yet achievable tips you may want to use to laying the foundation for the year ahead.

• Exercise– joining the gym must be the number one declaration made by millions every New Year’s Day.  This ‘vision’ carries a lot of energy until motivation extracts its life support.  Start off with small and manageable tasks such as walking round your block and gradually building up to longer distances. 

Having a ‘Buddy’ to accompany you and be accountable to.

Set realistic and meaningful targets.

• Positive Relationships – a good time to look at your contacts in your devices

Openness –learning to be honest, reflective and truthful with yourself and others can be challenging yet so liberating.  This will be an amazing tool for examining you with the next few questions.

How important are you to you? 

What’s the first thing you look at in the morning?  How often do you check your devices each day?  What can you replace the time spent on checking, re-checking, reading, re-reading and looking for responses on your device?

• Finances – set a practical budget for each month or week.

Challenge yourself to reducing this figure by 10% each month

Organisation such as Christians Against Poverty (CAP) – expert support on financial difficulty including bankruptcy who operate through churches, local authorities and community centres.    capuk.org

During 2020, Mental Health Awareness monthly blogs will be reviewing these tips by exploring and suggesting techniques to being creative, attentive and positive.  The aim will be to equip you all with tools to create mental greatness for each one of us!