Beginning two years ago, here at Performance Lifestyle Inc, we’ve started making December 1st (mentally and in interns of our societally habituated, professional and personal habits around the year ahead) the start of the new year. It lowers anxiety around the new year and prompts us to have things in order, from sleep to clarity of intentions direct and strategy, and knowing our game and goals for the actual New Year, long before the Gregorian calendar Year begins.
That the new year typically begins on January 1st, a terrible time for renewal, as reported here by the Washington Post, is also a reinforcing point.
So beginning this December 1st while we are in the last month of Fall, helps us start the year fresh. As the author of this article, I know what can happen when one starts the years off exhausted.
Note: it was that experience that drove our company’s’ final push to develop Regenus Centers.
Making December 1 your New Years Day, is the ultimate “jump on the gun,” only in a good way, that will not stop you in your tracks and give you a momentum that outpaces most people, competitors etc, in January and enabling you to hit your stride early.
It’s simple, all it takes is a shift in mindset despite the fact that you are still in the present year (in this case 2018) and it virtually guarantees you will crush it (achieve your goals) in 2019, without getting crushed (tiring out, burning out, wearing out etc).
By the 3rd month of the fourth quarter of the year, this is when people really start getting worn down. This then causes the feeling of the “New Year—”, beyond the celebration, that period where you are really feeling reinvigorated for the year ahead— to consequentially arrive mid-January, or for some early February.
Sure, the end of year celebrations will come, but what I’m talking about is the feeling you get when you are kicking into a higher gear. Do you want that to be January or February? (Yeah, a little early bird gets the worm going on here 😉
Instead of looking at January 1, immediately after the holidays— a time when many of us throw caution and care to the wind, work extremely hard closing out the year, get minimal sleep, eat more and more poorly than any other time of the year, and push our brain and body the hardest only to leave us in January feeling like we are desperate for a vacation at what is supposed to be the start of a new year; start the New Year December 1—tomorrow.
You are likely already steeped in energy debt, due to overspending your energy through the portion of the year that’s past (don’t feel bad about it, you likely did so for good reasons, just do something about it) so it goes without saying that if you keep that up for the next month, any new goal and it’s execution is going to be compromised in January.
It’s also no secret that many of us get sick towards the end of the year, as seasons change, and yes, new viruses flourish. But the primary reason why we get sick is that our lifestyles wear us down, we overwhelm our bodies with excess, they lose functional efficiency; and with a compromised immune system the body has to put forth heroic action to lower the toxicity level and induce recovery.
So you get laid out, down and forced to stop.
That’s the reality.
So where do you start to make this natural shift in the yearly timeline and make December 1st, your new, New Years Day?
It starts with getting more sleep than you have in any prior December in your recorded history.
The solution to the above scenario is not to go through all of that, to begin with, somehow thinking a vacation is all you need to recover and begin meeting the demands of the new year ahead. Remember we live in a performance culture today. Meaning, due to technology, our society is a result- driven machine, life marches on and expectations are high. It’s not like it was in the ’70s – ’90s where natural boundaries were fully respected. Today life moves fast so you don’t have the luxury of having the natural boundaries our economy once had built in for the time when you could get away or slow down, not including vacations. That was added.
There is some, slow down time, but the reality is due to today’s pace of life; you’ve got to manage your energy, stay healthy and performing well else life can get really hard.
So here at the end 2018 or any future year steer clear of falling into a free for all (still enjoying yourself) and start the new year on January 1, feeling strong by amping up your sleep performance. Yes, during what many would call the busiest month of the year!
You set a strategy for December 1 as if it were January 1.
Even though you will hopefully end the year with a rejuvenation break (stay or vacation) you want to right now, make sure you are getting more than enough sleep. This article is not on your daily routines or sleep science or the principles, and practices you want to know to reinforce your values around sleep. It’s a directive article.
A directive means you rely on what you know right now and learn, and do your best to meet your sleep needs of 7-9+ hours per night. Sleep fixes everything. There is not one aspect of your lifestyle or area of your life that will not dramatically improve, by virtue of the fact that you will be a supremely, better-functioning individual, by improving your sleep.
Sure you’ll party it up a bit, this December, but immerse yourself in rejuvenating practices throughout the whole month, more than any other month. No more messing around. No more, writing sleep off. No more stories in your head that belittle the snooze. Sleep has the makings of greatness built in, and don’t ever forget it.
Consider that Step one to your New Year, going great. When you don’t here’s what can happen.
Oh, and by the way, make your new years’ resolutions Starting December 1, not in January, that’s when you start fulfilling them. Start with sleep, you’ll begin a Regeneration Transformation™, that all other changes and improvements throughout the year will depend on; and then add everything else.
