We’re halfway through January. That’s almost 4% of the entire year already done again. Okay, no, hold up – that’s spooky if you put it that way; let’s start again.
Hellooo – look at us, surviving the first two weeks of the year! No, no, too cynical. Ah, I know:
Merry happy new year, may you have had a wonderful slide into it (disclaimer: that’s what Germans say¹) and may it be better than the last. Yay!

What are your hopes and wishes for 2025?

I just googled around a bit and looked at what the most common new years resolutions here in Britain are. And I am proud to announce that I am juuust like everybody else. We’ve got the usual suspects, don’t we? Exercising, eating healthier, losing weight. To be fair, these are basically just one split in three. And saving money. Sure, I do have some that fall under the category “Other”, but these are the main things. Oh hey, don’t they sound just like last year?

I don’t know about you, but I struggle quite a bit with building new habits or implementing lasting changes. I am an excellent candidate for making up silly excuses when I should know better. So this year, once again, I would very much like to change that. See, the issue is, in theory I know what I should do. And I assume you do, too. Let’s see.

• Set a specific goal – easy enough. What I at least know is that the smaller the goal, the better. Or, hold on, not smaller. But reachable. Realistic. And precise. It doesn’t help saying “Oooh yeeaaah, I wanna be buff!” – what does help, is saying “I wanna be able to bench-” uh… shouldn’t have taken an example I don’t know things about. How much do people lift? “- X kilograms! Yeah!” _^(phew.)
• Have a detailed plan – Oh, I love plans. I love lists. I make lists for my lists. And to be fair, whenever I’m in the mood if following said lists, my days are usually great! But then I stop making the lists. Or ignore my calendar alarms. Or, well, you know. So I realise that this is the part where I start struggling. I have specific and realistic goals. But it’s the step of following my own tasks that don’t work. So here’s where I need to change things up from last year. But how?

I know you should make things fun, so they don’t feel like work, but what if the issue is, that the fun things you plan also don’t work out? For example, one of my categorised as “Other” resolutions is to draw more again. I’m a passionate artist, but I seem to have left that passion somewhere along the way. So what about those things?

Maybe, at the beginning, you just have to tunnel-vision things.

I know from experience that it is too easy to say “Oh well, didn’t reach my goal of 10.000 steps today. Guess I’ll give up now.” – but isn’t that stupid? Maybe I still did 5.000. Or even 2.500. That’s still good enough, right? At least I worked on it! And that’s the mindset I want to embrace. Not seeing the “I didn’t complete it”, but instead warmly hugging the “But at least I didn’t do nothing.”

Let’s do this.

Don’t they say “Be 1% better each day”? Don’t know who they are, to be fair, probably quite a bunch of people when they are talking about productivity. And hey, that’s a great thing to strife for, but again, sometimes even that sounds overwhelming. So instead, let’s start a bit slower. Maybe 1% a week, if you can? And once you get the ball rolling, there’s still the opportunity to change it to a daily increment. I, for one, really dislike waking up in the dark and finishing work in the dark – and I know I am more productive, naturally, during the longer days.

So what I am going to do – and I invite you to do it with me – is doing one big thing a week that’ll make your life better. Feel free to plan them ahead, if you want! I am currently looking at what’s most urgent. So last week, for example, I started drinking 3 litres of water a day. Dragged my butt downstairs to make myself a full pot of tea (I like the herby leaf juice, so no need to judge me for a cold cuppa), as well as placing a 1 litre bottle on my desk. Bosh done. A task done almost automatically. This week, I finally, finally set up my LISA. That’s a Lifetime Individual Savings Account, if you didn’t know, and I strongly suggest you look into this as well. I followed Which.co.uk’s advice and went with Tembo – it literally took me 5 minutes to set up. Five minutes for an almost guaranteed five-figures bonus to my pension. Guys.

Anyway, next week? Next week I’m starting to go swimming again. And that’ll be week 3 of the year. A good 95% still to go – and it’s already 3% better than the last. Be gentle to yourself. It’s amazing to be determined and to work towards your goals. But don’t crush yourself under too much pressure. Go your own pace. My 1% might be your 10%. My 10% might be your 1%. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because the only one you’re comparing yourself against is yourself. Don’t forget that.

And now I’m going to do some art.

1. “Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!” – the German way of saying “Happy New Year”. Translated it would mean “good slide into the new year”, which we only say, well, before New Year’s. After that, we also wish you a happy one. But before that, well, may you sliiiiide over smoothly! ↩︎