Happy New Year: How to make your year truly happy

Every year at the end of December, across most parts of the world, people chorus HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! to welcome the new year. It is easy to see the joy, the excitement on faces and sense the hope and the belief that the new year would bring greater accomplishments and fulfilment than the previous year.

The excitement that comes with a new year is simply the human tendency to associate the new year with a fresh start, better opportunities, greater accomplishments, and successes. Many also hold the belief that the old year has somehow dragged with it their bad habits, bad luck, poor judgment, indolence, poor attitude, ego, poor lifestyle, and corrosive relationships. The human psyche seems to believe that a new year has the ability to or will reshape their identity and bring good or better luck.

Strange traditions to usher in the new year

To ensure they really have better opportunities in the new year and accomplish greater things, people across the world engage in all sorts of weird New Year’s Eve traditions that sometimes border on the ridiculous to ward off bad luck and welcome good luck in the new year. But people do believe in the efficacy of these traditions, no matter how laughable they may seem.

In Ireland, for instance, people bang on pots and pans on New Year’s Eve to scare away bad or evil spirits so they can enter the new year with a good, benevolent spirit that will help them accomplish things. In Latin America, particularly in Mexico, a tradition adopted from Spain, people celebrate the hour to the new year by eating las doce uvas de la suerte, 12 grapes, believed to bring luck in the new year. I suppose each grape signifies each month of the year.

In Bologna Italy, an effigy of an old man representing the old year, il Rogo del Vecchione, is burnt, symbolising the burning of the bad luck faced in the old year, to ensure only good luck follows into the new year. Even stranger is the practice in parts of Mexico of wearing different coloured underwear for different wishes for the new year. White coloured underwear stands for peace, green for wealth, yellow for happiness, and so on.

The Greeks hang onions above their doors on New Year’s Eve to invite good spirits of fortune and fertility into the new year while South Africans throw out from their windows old furniture representing getting rid of old ways to give in to the new. In Romania, people toss coins into a river to get good luck in the year. In Denmark, they break dishes by throwing them against the front door to ward away bad luck and usher in good luck in the new year. Colombians run around their neighbourhoods with empty suitcases at midnight to invite safety during their travels in the new year.

There are numerous other such new year eve traditions from Korea, Japan, India to Australia, Iceland, Turkey, Poland, Canada, and others. In Nigeria, due to our religious leanings, new year eves, at least the last few hours of it, are spent in religious worship centres to perform spiritual cleansing, pray away the evils of the old year and pray in good fortune in the new year.

Design your own happiness

These traditions show that we all desire good things to happen to us in a new year and we made efforts to ensure they did. After these elaborate activities to destroy bad luck and welcome good one, why do we still fall into bad times and experience unhappiness in a year?

The answer to the above question lies within us. Happiness is a decision. Your success or failure in a year consists of the totality of what you do in that year; it is not defined by that single action on New Year’s Eve where you ‘ward off’ bad luck. To make your new year truly happy, you have to design that happiness. What this means is that you have to take deliberate steps to ensure you achieve your stated objectives for the year as laid out in your new year resolution. To design or create your happiness, focus on what brings balance and fulfilment into your life. Below I have highlighted a few deliberate actions needed to take charge of our happiness.

Start with new year goals

Many start the year with new year resolutions, a sketch of what they are determined to achieve in the new year. Many times, these goals go unfulfilled because they are unrealistic to start with. I know many of us already have our new year resolution. But to make it effective, here’s what you should do. Break the resolutions into small achievable milestones and then work to achieve the small milestones, one at a time. So, for instance, in your professional life, you hope to boost your income: double or triple it in the new year. Start by asking yourself how and where this new income will come from: do you plan to take on extra jobs, boost your productivity at work so you can gain promotion, save and invest more, or simply cut out the frivolities in your life.

Once you determine where the extra income will come from it becomes easy to see what you have to do to achieve it. And this is where discipline comes in. You must be disciplined in pursuing your goals otherwise you may as well fold your arms. Or perhaps you plan to shed extra weight. Many will resolve they want to lose 36kg as if they can just slice 30kg from their body like slicing onions; there are no timelines and measurable progress outlined. 36kg is the big win and is vague. If you don’t draw up a plan for the small measurable wins you may feel frustrated three or four months down the line when you don’t notice an appreciable weight reduction. So, for instance, plan to achieve at least 3kg loss per month. That is more realistic and easier to achieve.

Invest in your health

The cliché ‘Health is Wealth’ is exactly that. Ill health comes with pain, weakness, lethargy, restlessness, and regular visits to the hospital or appointments with physicians. You lack the focus, the energy, and the drive to undertake any meaningful socio-economic tasks when you are unhealthy.

So, whatever goals you have set for yourself this new year, you must ensure you remain healthy to enable you achieve them. First is to regularly monitor your vitals: blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, cholesterol, body temperature, and heart rate. What regular checks do is to help pick up early any signs of illness and tackle it. Many health challenges can be corrected when detected early and tackled. Next is to move your body. Our bodies are designed for movement; movement boosts health and mood.

Unfortunately, in modern society many of our professional activities are sedentary in nature and studies have shown that a sedentary lifestyle can and does lead to health issues such as obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, and other challenges. But there’s a way around that. There are gyms everywhere you turn now. Join a gym today. Take up exercise: dancing, swimming, jogging, walking, playing basketball, biking, football, tennis, hiking, situps, pushups. Whatever exercise that is comfortable for you and can easily fit into your daily or weekly schedule pick it up. It is equally important to watch what we eat. We need to develop healthy feeding habits: eating healthy foods and portion, not eating late, taking adequate water, as well as taking adequate rest.

Build relationships/Network

Humans are created to interact and build each other up. You must actively build and nurture relationships both personal and professional. Whatever you plan to achieve or do, there are people who can help you achieve them faster with minimal stress. Network extensively and invest quality time with people who can lift you up. Also try and lift people in your life up, starting with your family.

Invest in your personal growth

Learning is a lifelong occupation; the day we stop learning is the day we start dying. Challenge your mental state by learning a new skill, a new language. Go back to school, if you can, and acquire a new certificate. Learning broadens the mind and gives us a wider world view or better perspective on issues. Whatever new knowledge or skill you have acquired can be applied towards your goal, making the attainment easier and faster.

Acknowledge the God factor

Whatever we do, we must acknowledge God. We must be close to our maker in prayers, in supplication, and in gratitude. In life, there’s an element of fate dogging our every action. Thus, we need to build our spiritual life. A prayer life connects us to God and reminds us that we are not alone in the journey of life. This realisation helps to calm our anxieties when we face challenges, giving us clarity and direction. Learn to begin each day/week with gratitude to God for the wins you have accomplished while hopeful and expectant of more wins as you move towards your goal.

What defines the human happiness is largely related to the successes we achieve and the fulfilment we get out of what we do. There are many challenges in the country today – economic hardship, insecurity, corruption, poor leadership, shrinking opportunities – that could steal one’s happiness. However, our happiness is still largely dependent on our actions and inactions. Focus on the ‘ME Economy’ and put in the efforts to make your year truly a happy one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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