Time to Reset and Prepare for the New Year and Why It’s Important

I’m that kind of person who is very hopeful whenever the new year comes. Oh you know the cliche new year, new me vibes. And now that 2021 is around the corner, I’m quite excited to reset and prepare for the new year. Well after going through 2020, you can’t blame me for being optimistic! #CovidAlert

I’m also excited to share with you the importance of resetting and preparing for the new year because – I see results! Towards the end of last year in 2019, I was taking little steps to prepare for the new year and I’m happy to say that I can see the results now in 2020!

I PREPARED IN 2019 – I SAW THE RESULT IN 2020

Despite the pandemic, I would say that 2020 has been quite a growth year for me. Here are the positive little things that are going on in my life this year:

• I’m still here figuringgitout for almost a year now!
• Figuringgitout has over 500 followers and likes on Facebook!
• I have completed 10 months of not buying anything!
• I have my emergency fund saved up now!
• I haven’t shared this yet – but I started learning all about stock trading! And started trading a bit too! (will share more)
• I consistently track my money every day!
• I (almost) consistently instill 3 positive habits in my daily routine now – wake up early, exercise, and read!
• Oh and I’m so much at peace with my financial life!

All the exclamation marks because I can’t actually believe that I managed to do all of those things this year!! They might look trivial and small things but ahhh those are BIG things for me because I did not have/do most of them in 2019. They came in 2020.

And you know how I come to this point? By…

PREPARING FOR THE NEW YEAR

Last year, 2019 was the year that I became tired and fed-up with the way I was living my life. I was a financial wreck. I did not have any savings. I was just a mess. I went to work 9-5 and then wasted my non-working hours doing nothing. That’s when I told myself this had to stop. I would not live the same way in 2020. The new year would be different.

At the same time, I also knew how new year resolutions, the new-year-new-me, work. They last for about… one month. Come February, the motivation and the excitement of January dries up. I did not want that.

So ladies and gentlemen, what did I do? Towards the end of 2019 when my frustration with my life was at the peak, I decided to have a reset to start afresh in the new year. So I started preparing myself for 2020.

WHAT I PREPARED FOR TOWARDS THE END OF LAST YEAR

These were the things that I did last year in preparation for the new year (I just focus on the financial stuff here okay):

• I was frustrated with everything, mainly about my financial life. So I figured out my goal for the new year, which was simple – I would not live with the same frustration in 2020.
• I knew I had problem with my spending so I tried to figure out what did I do wrong. I started tracking my expenses in June 2019.
• My main frustration was I didn’t have savings. I wouldn’t be able to help myself (let alone others) during emergencies. So first thing first, you can’t help others if you can’t help yourself – hence I got myself a medical card and life insurance in November 2019.
• I didn’t know what to do – I did some, okay a lot of, googling and researching. Reading other people’s experiences. Getting myself into this wide world of (informal) financial education. And there I found my next step – to build my emergency fund.
• In November 2019, I got the idea to start blogging about my financial life. Figuringgitout came to my head. I initially planned to start in 2020 as a new year project. But I knew if I didn’t act on it soonest, I would lose interest. So I immediately bought this domain and web hosting (after googling for days because I didn’t know how). My first post was in December 2019.
• Other than the usual saving method, I figured I had to take extreme measures to save up for my emergency fund. So in December 2019, I decided that starting from the 1st January 2020, I would not buy things.
• Throughout the last two months of 2019, I was preparing myself mentally to implement all these changes (did a bit shopping also in anticipation of a whole year without shopping lol).

And basically, that was how I prepared for 2020. And I’m glad that the 2019-me did that. Because the 2020-me is living the results (not a perfect smooth sailing year lah, but little steps forward, that’s all that matters).

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE NEW YEAR

Based on my personal experience, I would say that preparing for the new year is an essential element to any new year’s resolutions.

In the new year, I want to save money. Next year, I want to kurus. I want to read more. I want to be productive. I want to be the best version of myself. Ehm I don’t want to be a downer but having those resolutions alone isn’t enough.

So let’s take time now to prepare for the new year. These are my step-by-step way to do so:

1. Step 1: Internal observation
   Observe yourself and review your life – what did you do right/wrong?
2. Step 2: Critical analysis
   Pinpoint your problems in any specific area in your life that you’re not happy with.
3. Step 3: Setting goals
   Figure out your goals – what do you want to change in your life?
4. Step 4: Building system
   Determine your method/system – what should you do to achieve your goals?
5. Step 5: Planting seeds
   To not wait for the new year to really work towards that goal, plant the seeds now. This is the most important part of the whole process!

I’ll share in my next post my actual and exact reset and preparation process for 2021.

LET’S PREPARE FOR THE NEW YEAR

Let’s do this together. Because you know what they say about preparation…

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

– Alexander Graham Bell

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

– Benjamin Franklin

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

– Abraham Lincoln

Or you know as what we Malaysians always say –

Panas enjin dulu.

– Malaysians