So yesterday didn’t go exactly how you wanted. Want to start over? Wake up and make today the fresh start you really need? Then you’re in the right place, my friends. Here’s 7 steps to make today a fresh start – plus, why that actually may be EXACTLY what you need!
Why Today Could Be a Great Day For a Fresh Start
Fresh starts are healthy when used properly. They keep you staying present.
You might want to make today a fresh start if:
- Yesterday was an especially bad day.
- Yesterday you felt particularly low.
- You didn’t behave in the way you wanted to yesterday.
- Things happened that you’d rather forget about yesterday.
- You’re caught in the trap of being hard on yourself or beating yourself up.
- You’re in the process of trying to recreate yourself and you want to focus on moving forward – learning, growing and improving, instead of looking back.
See, it doesn’t mean you need to forget about everything that happened the day, or days, before.
But waking up and starting fresh simply means:
Today, I’m going to start over. I’m going to make the day MINE, and act in a way that feels true to ME!
7 Steps To Make Today a Fresh Start
So how do you do it? What are the key steps to making today a fresh start? Well…
Step 1) Clear Your Mind
First up, you’ve got to clear your mind. This can come by doing a guided mindfulness meditation, or journalling to get your hurt or frustrations out from the day before.
You may even need to get a few things off your chest and “talk it out“, if you’re wanting to make today a fresh start because of conflict that happened the day before. (Let’s say you were arguing with your partner for example.)
If talking is the way to go however, just make sure it’s positive and productive, instead of going through the same things and stirring the same issues up more.
Do whatever you’ve got to do to feel… lighter. And DECIDE to feel lighter. DECIDE to let things go to free the space in your mind and life for a reset this morning.
Decision is a big thing. Decision and commitment. So know what works, know what you need in order to let go of yesterday, and then move onto step 2…
Step 2) Visualise Your Day… And Your Future
The next step to making today a fresh start is to visualise how you want your day to go and tie that into the future that you desire.
Shake off your body, lie down in a straight, comfortable position and put on some calming or inspiring music.
TOP TIP: Choose the same music every time you visualise as it trains your brain to associate visualisation with it.
- Picture how you want your day to go.
- Picture how you want to FEEL today.
- Don’t forget to picture how you want to BEHAVE today, too.
- Know what you want to get done or achieve.
- Tie that all into your end vision and goal and picture the future you want to see.
When picturing all of this, the exact picture itself is not as important as the positive emotions it brings. Here, let me give you an example…
Effective Ways To Visualise What You Want
When it comes to visualisation, and particularly visualisation for your day, you want to be clear and specific but also flexible too…
Flexibility is important as you can’t predict EVERY single thing, especially when it involves other people. If you try to, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
So instead, let’s take healing from heartbreak for example…
If you had a tough day yesterday, and you want to visualise a better post-breakup day today:
- See yourself being productive and working through all the things you need to in the day.
- See yourself pushing through… Even when you don’t feel like it. (As that’s realistic right? Even if you make today a fresh start, the chances are, you won’t feel instantly happy, bubbly and full of life, just like that, so visualise a realistic, but positive outcome for today.)
- Smile at the thought of that. Smile at the thought of you pushing through. Feel the sense of pride and accomplishment. (Remember I said – it’s the feelings that are the biggest part of the visualisation.)
- See yourself feeling SURPRISED at how well you’ve got on with your day and how actually-okay you feel inside. (See you don’t need to be unrealistic, but you can aim for far more than you expected, and exactly what you’d really want.)
- Picture yourself as the new, happiest, most confident version of you, one month from now – the end goal, what you’re working towards, and step into that person. Be it, feel it, live it in your mind (then see it be brought to life and your reality in time!)
How To Make Today a Fresh Start
Step 3) Get Up Instead of Lying In
Once you’ve cleared your mind, done a little meditation, then that all important visualisation – it’s then time to get yourself up and out of bed… No lying around or hitting the snooze.
You want to really “hit the ground running” as they say, and it feels good to do this… Even if you’re feeling tired.
If you can wake up slightly earlier, even better. But pop an alarm on and stick to it…
When that alarm goes off, your day has started – so see it as exciting! It’s a new opportunity!
You can still meditate and visualise in bed if you prefer, but have a good stretch, have a quick glass of water to rehydrate after the night, then get straight into it, my friends!
Step 4) Set Goals For The Day
If you want to make the day yours, you need to know what that looks like. And we’re not just talking about work goals on a standard day… You can set goals for any day.
For example, if you didn’t like yesterday, how you felt, how you acted, how it went, to make today a fresh start, you may have goals like:
Today I Want To…
- Practice self-compassion! That comes by recognising my negative, critical thoughts, challenging them and -literally- giving myself a hug!
- Connect with my partner. With something like this you then may create a list for things that will help you to do that – intimacy exercises, deep questions, finding time for quality time in the day (no matter how busy it is!)
- Better connect with myself. Ask yourself the key questions to get to know yourself, do things you enjoy, get dressed up and feel confident in the way you look, etc.
You can have big goals, small goals, difficult tasks, and simple ones. Social goals, relationship goals, personal development goals – the lot! Ideally, you want a mix within each day.
Step 5) Get Started
Just like you don’t want to lie around in bed – you also want to get started, taking positive action to making today the day you envision, straight away.
This means starting – and living by – the way you want to be, from the get-go, no excuses.
So if you had an argument with your partner the day before, you can’t make today a fresh start if you carry it on… Be the bigger person, rise above it, give them a kiss or a hug and change your behaviour right away (even in small ways!)
Or if you’re going through a breakup and yesterday you felt really low, start by moving your body, changing your physiology to change the way you feel, putting some empowering breakup songs and dancing around whilst you get ready…
Sure, maybe it won’t 100% work, but even if it improves your mood by 5%, that’s a positive change and essentially the start of the fresh start you wanted for today… Right?
Don’t wait or delay – start your way in the way you WANT the fresh start to look like. Set yourself up for success by starting it off in the right way!
Step 6) Check Yourself – Throughout The Day
Throughout the day, you want to ensure you stay focused on making the day the fresh start you want and need. It’s easy to slip back into old or bad habits, so – if needed – set alarms throughout the day, as reminders to check your behaviour.
If you find yourself slipping back or making a mistake, don’t beat yourself up. Just write it down on a “notes” pad on your phone, in order to “release it” then start over again…
You can start over as many times as you want or need, within the day itself! So don’t be hard on yourself.
Recognise it, write it down to acknowledge it, then try and try again.
You can always review your “notes” at the end of the day to learn for the following day, but in that moment, there’s no point dwelling on it.
Here, let me give you another example to make it clearer…
How To Check Yourself Throughout The Day
So let’s go back to the breakup example. You want to feel better after your breakup, you want to stop dwelling on the past, you know that you’ll have times of sadness but you want it to stop so heavily taking over your day, and so you committed to making today a fresh start…
Now, let’s say your biggest pain-point at the moment is thinking about your ex… You can’t stop thinking about them and it’s taking a toll on your work, stopping you from socialising and really bringing you down…
You start the day well, you clear your mind from them, you go into the day determined… And by 10 o’clock you notice they’re on your mind AGAIN. (You don’t even NEED to set a reminder to check your behaviour as you’re already falling into past habits!) At this point:
- STOP!
- Acknowledge it.
- Write it down, like a diary entry: “10am: I find myself thinking of my ex again. I’m just going over what happened, trying to make sense of it all, and wondering what they’re doing right now.”
- Then – challenge it, right there in the diary. Write the reminder you know you need to hear. “BUT, that is the past. I can’t change it, and I WILL accept it. I don’t need to know all the answers, I just need to focus on myself now.”
- Take some deep breaths. Feel PROUD of what you’ve just done. Visualise watching the thoughts of your ex, float by in a cloud if you need. Then re-focus.
- Ask yourself: what do I need to think about, or do instead, right now? Then get on with it…
It doesn’t matter how many times you need to do this in the day, and remember – it’s not a failure to have to do this, it’s a victory, because you’re increasing your awareness of your thoughts and behaviour and changing it as soon as you recognise it!
How To Make Today a Fresh Start
Day 7) Have Fun With It!
The final step to making today a fresh start is to have fun with it!
The more excited you are about the prospect of a fresh start, the better mindset you’ll have and the more you’re then likely to make it that.
Don’t take things too seriously. Remember that life is too short!
If you’re feeling OVERWHELMED or under pressure, just focus on even ONE thing that you want to change about your behaviour or your day – because that still counts as a fresh start!
Be proud of all the baby steps of progress, because these in turn add up to be the big changes you want and need to see.
That’s All For This One
So there we have it – 7 steps to make today a fresh start!
I hope this has helped, genuinely.
You don’t need to be perfect, you just need to be positive, proactive and keep trying. It’ll all pay off in the end, trust me.
Remember – today really is YOURS! So go make it what you want and BE who you want to be!
Sending all my love, encouragement and support.
Love,
Ell_xx
