Planting Seeds: Small Steps to a Joyful New Year
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As the brand new year beckons, there’s something beautifully gentle about this time between Christmas and January. It’s a chance to pause, reflect, and think about what we want the new year to bring. It’s tempting to chase big New Year’s resolutions and go charging in, but this year I want to offer you a different approach — focusing more on small steps and planting seeds for the future. After all, we are in the darkest time of the year, which never feels like the best time to make huge changes!
Why Small Steps Matter
If you’ve followed us for a while, you’ll know that I love big, ambitious goals and not letting yourself be limited by what society has told us is ‘realistic’.
But what I’ve found over the many years I’ve been chasing my own goals and dreams is that continuously taking small steps is the best way to make progress—not being perfect.
Big changes rarely happen overnight. It’s the small, consistent steps—the daily habits, the little routines, and ultimately the small choices you make to show up for yourself—that make the difference.
Whether it’s jotting down a morning intention, setting aside five minutes to plan your week, or simply celebrating a tiny win, every seed you plant now will grow in time.
Setting Intentions, Not Just Goals
While resolutions and goals are a guide to what we want to do, setting intentions is about how we want to feel and who we want to become in the process.
We need both—our goals can give us a destination, something to aim for and a direction. But when we add intentions, we get to decide what the journey to that goal looks like.
Do you want to feel calm, have fun on the journey, become stronger, more confident? Do you want to push yourself outside your comfort zone, face fears, and see what you are capable of?
How to Start: Thinking About Planting the Seeds
When we’re excited about a goal, it’s easy to want to rush in—‘I’ll go to the gym five nights a week’, ‘I’ll write my book by March’ or ‘I’ll eat no chocolate for the whole of 2026!’
This is all relative and depends on where you are right now, but sometimes being too ambitious ultimately sets us up for failure. We can’t keep up with the ambitions we set ourselves, have the chocolate, miss a gym session, and then feel like failures—it can feel impossible to achieve our goals.
Instead, what’s the smallest thing you could do that moves you in the right direction? What’s realistic, and how can you build up some positive momentum?
Maybe January is about trying out some new fitness classes to see which you love the most. It could be thinking about different ways to increase your fitness, like joining a sports group or getting out for a walk each day.
Tools and Techniques
- Begin with your planner: Use your planner to list out your big goals or dreams so you have your focus for the year.
- Think about how you’d like to achieve this goal (your intention): Do you want it to be fun, or empowering?
- How can you start small? Think about how you could do small things to set yourself up for success—don’t be afraid to do things differently!
- Try habit tracking: Our planners and sticker kits have various ways to track your habits—and here’s a secret: if you miss a day, it doesn’t matter! It takes, on average, over two months to build a habit, so take your time.
- Celebrate progress: Don’t wait for perfection—celebrate each small step, no matter how tiny.
Your Tools for a Joyful Year
Our planners and planning kits are designed to support you every step of the way—helping you nurture your intentions and celebrate your progress. Take a look at our planning bundles here.
I hope you’ve found these tips useful! And good luck on your next adventure—you’ve got this!
