Swap the January Blues for the January Woo Hoos!

The typical January Blues Story...

It's dark, it's cold, it's wet.

Everything seems like hard work (even harder work than usual)

Anything good happening seems a long way off.

It's nearly the end of the financial year and you've still got some work to do.

Payday seems like an eternity away

Someone has suggested Dry January

Your New Year's Resolutions are starting next Monday

Sound familiar?

I once got called out on LinkedIn for suggesting that whether or not you're going to have a great day today is, to a large extent, in your own hands. I appreciate that the person who did the calling out was looking at the post from the point of view of those instances that aren't in your own hands. But I still believe the sentiment to be true

If you focus on the January Blues, guess what you're likely to experience?

How about instead, we focus on the possibility of the January Woo Hoos?

It's a month that is generally quieter than others - this is a great time to get some of those important things you know you need to do, but that no-one ever pesters you for, done?

It's a great month to set plans for the year that don't all slant towards the financial year end - what would YOU like to do more of / less of, try, stop, learn, develop, see this year? And how can you add small incremental steps into your calendar NOW so that you can see those plans being achieved?

It's THE best month to plan your holidays and annual leave for the year - not necessarily financial commitment, but plan in and set aside the time NOW for you to take some really good restful, restorative time off work. If you don't book it, you won't take it

Also, while it's in your recent memory, have a think about how you felt at the end of the year last year. Did you over commit? Did you crawl towards the last week of the year with your tank on entirely empty? Did you promise yourself you wouldn't feel the same next (this) year? Now's the time to unpick what it was that made it so full and to look at how you could redistribute some things, and where you might want to consider saying "no" to things this time around

Any one of these four suggestions would give me cause to have the January Woo Hoos

How about you?

Claire x