Do a self-review. You do it for your career, so why not apply a self-review to your life? Take a moment to consider how the past year went for you. Hopefully, in 2023, you were able to find time to accomplish the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year. Ask yourself what personally went well and what you’d like to improve as the new year begins. What new skills or relationships did you develop that were a bright point in your year? What caused you to stress this year? A self-review like this can help you better understand the highs and lows of the last year and set a precedent for a great year ahead.

Reach out to loved ones. Take some steps to inspire more connection with your loved ones in the new year. Set aside time to send a few quick texts or make calls to your family or friends you haven’t spoken to in a while. Update them on how you’re doing and ask for the same in return, and if a goal is to improve your relationships in 2024, be sure to do this often throughout the year to keep those connections strong.

Clean up. Similar to a fresh to-do list, starting the year off with a tidy space can help you mentally prepare for the new year. Whether you simply pick up your area or do a deep clean is up to you, but the effects can be great. Studies show that a clean space is associated with more positive emotions, like happiness, satisfaction, and calm.

Set new goals. Of course, the new year is the perfect time to set some new goals for yourself. Make SMART goals, meaning they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based. All of these qualities help make a goal easier for you to accomplish, setting you up for more success in the future.

Put yourself at the top of the list. Put yourself at the top of the list by taking care of yourself. If you strive to reach your own goals, you will become a better spouse, friend, child, and parent.

Take a Long, Hard Look at Your Calendar. The new year is a perfect time to review your recurring meeting schedule. Begin by assigning all your recurring meetings a rating in terms of importance. “1” means it’s absolutely that you attend. “5” means it doesn’t matter whether you’re there. Once you’ve rated all your meetings, try declining your “5”s and see how much Focus Time that opens up.

Time Block Your Calendar. Once you get a little more wiggle room in your schedule, you must decide how to use that extra time. Time blocking is when you prioritize your task list, estimate how much time each task will take, and proactively assign blocks of time on your calendar to each task.

Create New Healthy Work Routines. Establishing daily routines and sticking to them to create comfort and stability.

Find Your Focus.  If you focus on one area at a time and start to integrate that into your life, it can be really helpful and feed over to other areas of your life.

De-Stigmatize Mental Health. While great strides have been made in recent years, an unfortunate stigma still surrounds mental health. People often diminish their mental health needs because of fear of being treated differently or what family, friends, or colleagues will think. Sadly, more than half of people with mental illness don’t get the support they need. So, to prioritize mental health this year, start talking about it. If each of us would practice this mental health tip, the change could be profound.

Don’t Wait for a Crisis. If you feel really overwhelmed, it’s going to be harder for you to start a new habit or to implement new strategies. If you review your daily life and discover a decline in what’s normal or healthy for you, taking steps toward positive change can be beneficial.

Connect with Intention. Making this intentional connection might involve scheduling time to get together in person, catching up over text, or scheduling regular Zoom calls. This meaningful connection strengthens your sense of community and can help combat the cumulative effect of stress and anxiety that exists in the world today.

Make One Big Change. Often, it’s the big stuff that takes up most of your budget. Your car and house payments, for example, probably eat up a far larger percentage of your income than whatever small indulgences you enjoy. Yet, when it comes to looking for ways to cut spending, many people often chip away at the little costs. This can be a misguided approach because cutting tons of little expenses is hard to sustain and may not have a big long-term impact on your savings anyway. Rather than doing this, look at those big expenses and see if you can make one change that will be easy to stick with and give you lots of extra cash. For example, selling your current expensive car and getting a cheap used one or moving to a less-expensive apartment could free up tons of money to save.

Evaluate Your Memberships and Subscription Services. There are so many subscription services out there now for everything from streaming music to vehicle theft protection to video doorbells. All of these different monthly costs can really add up and may not be necessary. So, take a look at your credit cards and bank statements to see what programs you’re a subscriber to or a member of. If you spot anything on your list that you aren’t actively using and getting value from, cancel it and redirect that money directly into savings instead.

Deal With Your Debt. If you owe a lot of money, every dollar you’re paying toward it is money you cannot save for your future. So, try to create a proactive plan for paying down high-interest debts.

Set Detailed Savings Goals. If you want to be successful at saving more, it’s helpful to know exactly what that means to you. You should try to be as specific and detailed as possible in establishing your goals, as this makes accomplishing them much more likely.

Automate Your Savings. Finally, making saving money automatic will significantly increase the chances you’ll stick with your plan to invest more for your future. Once you set up the transfer of funds to savings, it becomes more effort and a conscious choice to cancel it — and many people won’t do that.