It’s that time again, when we all sit back and think of ways to improve our lives for the year ahead.

An opportunity to start fresh and make goals happen.

You might start a hobby, or finally use that gym membership you never cancelled.

Clinical Psychologist Dr Vivienne Lewis from the University of Canberra says it’s okay to continue with goals you established for yourself previously.

‘We don’t have to re-start at the beginning of every year.

There’s a lot of things we’re already working towards that we can just keep going with. We can re-start at any point throughout the year. Making sure you’re always working on things that enhance your wellbeing and make you feel good.

Dr Lewis says if you are going to set new year’s resolutions, or goals, there’s a few things to take into consideration.

“Give yourself plenty of time, make sure they’re realistic goals, actually goals you want to work towards, and not necessarily goals you have to start immediately once the new year kicks in.

I think it’s important to take stock of the year just gone, even celebrating you might’ve gotten through a challenging year, that you managed work issues, health issues or family issues. Celebrating you managed to get through things!

Also reminding yourself thinking of the year as a whole, there’s often things we’ve achieved that happened earlier in the year that we’ve forgotten about. Just reminding yourself of different things you’ve enjoyed, the different pleasures you’ve had, people in your life, the things that really enhance our lives.”

As for advice heading into the working year…

‘Start your routine before you go back to work. A couple of days before you go back to work, you know try and get ack to your regular sleeping routine, going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time. Your regular eating, you know just making sure you’re looking after yourself

Take it easy, don’t expect to go in that first week all guns blazing.

Make sure you reward yourself for getting through the first day, and the first week.”

Maybe your wardrobe is a part of your New Year’s Resolution? Get some style advice from the Tailored Talk podcast..