New Year, New Energy: Reclaim Your Focus and Vitality

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Hi there. Welcome back to the Make Time For Success podcast. This is season number 5 for the show and episode number 212. I'm so glad you are with me today. This episode is called New Year, New Energy, and indeed, we are celebrating a brand new year together, and I am just going to take this year and make things a whole lot less complicated. That's just my own commitment to myself. Perhaps you've got different ones for yourself, and I want you to wholeheartedly dig into what you need for your life this year. I've got some thoughts for how we can reclaim and revitalize our energy at the start of this year, and I can't wait to share those ideas with you now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:49]:
Let's go listen to the episode, and I'm so, so happy that you're here with me now.

Speaker B [00:00:59]:
Hi. I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:42]:
Hi there, everyone, and happy 2025. I'm so happy to be able to greet this brand new year with you together with excitement for what's ahead and with some thoughts about how we should approach this brand new experience and opportunity in front of us. First of all, I wanna say I'm really excited and thrilled that this is the beginning of the 5th year of the podcast, and it really just is a sign of how quickly time goes by and really just makes me reflect about all the different experiences this podcast and speaking to you and sharing time with you all has brought to me and has created for our community. So thank you from the bottom of my heart, from the beginning of this year for being a listener of this show. It means so much to me, and I really hope this content, this show, the energy that we create together means a lot to you in your life as well. So as we look towards 2025, I am going to suggest that we take an attitude of getting refreshed and starting the year strong, But knowing that we can be strong throughout the year without wiping ourselves out, I think the end of the year always tends to be a lot for midlife women with so many different accumulated responsibilities and overwhelm and energy depletion and the holidays and visitors and traveling. I, myself, am minutes away from going to visit my own in laws, so believe me, I experience the same kinds of things as you probably have in recent weeks. But I want you to take a moment now, since you're with me on this show, to imagine what it would be like to really start 2025 with real clarity, with real focus, and with true energy in your hearts, minds, and bodies, that you have everything you need to pursue everything that you want in the next year.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:09]:
We're not gonna start feeling like we've been run over by a truck or anything like that, that this is actually a time for reflection, for refreshing our energy, and for reinvigorating our goals. My thought before pressing record today was that for myself, I'm thinking that this year is a year of action for me, that I'm going to reduce all of the background labor that I tend to do. And there is a good amount that I do, but I know that every year that I could let some of that go. Because with each year, I get a little more experienced. I get a little more ambitious. I get a little more myself, and it is okay to use what you've accumulated in terms of wisdom and in terms of strategies and in terms of just going ahead with things and trusting that things are gonna go well. It's okay to use all of that as you move forward in 2025. I'm gonna suggest that this year is the year of the midlife woman.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:18]:
It is the year that midlife women decide everything is going to work out well, everything is going to work out smoothly, and I'm gonna take action really quickly and with confidence. So I'm going to share some ideas for how exactly to do that today in this episode. And I wanna just start by saying that your energy really matters. If you're thinking, you know what? I can stay up late. I can eat all the junk food. I can stay sedentary and not have any of that have an impact on you. Unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that that is not gonna be true. You're going to as a midlife woman, you're going to need to stay mobile.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:07]:
You're going to move your body. You're going to really refresh your energy in whatever way you choose to do that, but it's likely not gonna be through feeding your body junky types of food, too much sugar, too much white flour. You're going to decide this is the year where I understand that my physical body, my mental energy, my emotional well-being is all tied up in 1, that I am one singular being, and I am someone who requires a lot of self care. A lot meaning intentional self care, a lot meaning daily self care, a lot meaning I'm gonna move my body and make sure that I don't get achy joints, that I experience fresh air, that I get myself 7 or 8 hours of sleep every night because it's time. It's time to get all of that in order. So manage your sources of energy, your physical body, your emotional well-being, and your mental energy. What are you thinking across the day? Those 60 to 80000 thoughts that run through your head every day, make sure they are supporting you. Make sure they are positively oriented.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:28]:
Make sure they are not filled with catastrophic events and beliefs about things that are never going to happen, things that are negative because we don't want to attract that kind of stuff for this new year. We want to attract really wonderful ease, good things, and, of course, our highest goals. So, now, I have 3 steps for you to try on that can help you reclaim your energy as we start the new year together. The first step is that you can declutter your commitments, and that will mean very different things to each one of you listening today, but I want you to think to yourself, how do I want this new year to feel? And then I want you to look at the commitments you have in your life, whether it's to organizations or to particular people or to particular habits. I want you to decide that you have 3 that you can downsize or you can just plain out release and delegate right now just because you're listening to this episode. What will it cost you to keep commitments that aren't aligned with your needs and with your goals this year? I want you to get rid of those costly commitments right now so that you can start off feeling lighter at the starting line. And I love how this decluttering concept works because no matter what I declutter, I always feel this jolt of surprise, like, wow. Was it really that easy? And then I feel the freedom of not having to move forward with that weight weighing me down anymore, and it just feels so delightful.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:17]:
So I really suggest you try that on for size. Find 3 things that you can get rid of, throw away, delete, break a commitment with, and say, you know what? I'm free from this from now on. The second step that you can do to reclaim your energy is you can simplify your focus. Also, a huge technique for lightening up your energy and finding the energy that is missing. I have found so often, whether it is my own behavior or the behavior of my clients, when we are focusing on too many things and thinking that we're gonna get to everything and thinking that we're gonna do everything just perfectly, we start to slow down. We start to get an energy slowdown because our energy is spread across so many different things. So think about what happens around the holidays. Our focus tends to center around family, around being nice to other people, around buying gifts.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:27]:
It brings everything together, and for most, that is effective. Some for some people, it's completely overwhelming. But, of course, for many, it really is a time where, you know what, we practice focusing on just getting through the end of the year and making it nice for ourselves and other people, the people that we love. So use that kind of practice of simplifying your focus throughout the year. It is really okay. I think the fear that many of us have around not simplifying our focus is that something is gonna be dropped, that we're going to fail in our performance somehow. But what I found is that when we simplify our focus, we actually get more done. We get more done with greater efficiency and with greater power and with greater and better results.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:19]:
So decide for yourself that when you choose to do things in a way that is in alignment with your energy needs, everyone is going to benefit. Your results list is going to improve. You are gonna feel proud of yourself. That is gonna have a ripple effect in your life. So, again, don't be afraid moving forward. Be empowered. Alright. The 3rd step to reclaim your energy is to make sure that you have some sort of practice of recharging your energy every single day.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:51]:
Whether it's a walk around the block, whether it is drinking more water, whether it is having some sort of deep breathing practice. Doesn't matter. It just matters that you do something, that you take charge of your system instead of feeling that you are vulnerable to your systems. You are the boss. You are the manager. You've heard me talk about this before in the podcast. You are the creator of the system that you're gonna run by this year, So let's get you being really masterful at this creation process. Decide what are you gonna do for the next 7 days without fail in a streak kind of way so that you can actually see the benefit instead of deciding that you're flattened by the new year already.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:41]:
I don't want you to walk into 2025 thinking that you've got no chance of success because, guess what, the entire planet is thinking right now, what am I gonna do this year to increase my feeling of being successful? Remember, you can make time for success. Alright. If you happen to, at this point, feel like you have some sort of resistance, you're saying to yourself, you know what? 2025 is already booked up. I'm too busy to make any changes. I want you to just pause and decide that you need to prioritize yourself. All the to do list items, they're still gonna remain. Things are gonna tug at you, and that is how things are supposed to be. But what is also supposed to be is that you are supposed to prioritize your well-being.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:35]:
Guilt is not gonna get you very far. Shame is just gonna slow you down. Embarrassment will never help you to see who you truly are, so take a few minutes, decide, declutter your commitments, recharge your energy every day, simplify your focus, and just go forward with really great lighter energy for this new year. And so my way of ending this first episode of the new year is to ask you to have a call to action for yourself. What are you gonna call yourself to action for? Is it gonna be decluttering your bedroom? Is it going to be being nicer to your relatives? Is it gonna be that you're gonna find energy sources that you didn't think were useful to you before? Whatever it is, I wish you all the best for your efforts, for your call to action. I wish you all the best for 2025. I think it's gonna be a great year. So honor yourself, honor your energy, honor your best wishes for yourself and your loved ones and your commitments this year.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:52]:
I'm here for you. Let's keep going into this year week after week together with the podcast as our vehicle for connecting with each other, and we have got this year locked up already. If you would like an energy reboot checklist, I've created one for you just as a gift for the new year. All you need to do to get this free download is to go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/reboot. Again, go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/reboot. Let's go. Let's keep celebrating as the year moves on. Take care.

Speaker B [00:15:32]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a d m and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Speaker B [00:16:12]:
Talk to you soon.