Do you need a new year reset already?

In this week's video I talk about my eastern and western heritage and how Chinese New Year can give you the opportunity to reset. Again. Particularly if you're one of the 80% of people who will abandon their new years' resolutions by 1 February.

If you want to receive my free weekly Mel's Money Musings direct to your inbox each Friday, make sure you sign up to receive them at the footer below.

Of course, if you know that you need more help check out the My Financial Adulting Plan via the link below. Next round opens on 14 May 2023.

Transcript

Hey, and welcome to Mel's Money Musings. Now it's the first Money Musings of 2023. So I wanna talk about goals and resolutions and starting the year right. Because chances are you are like one of the 80% of people who according to a Forbes study have abandoned their new year's resolution. 80% of people, according to Forbes study, abandons their New Year's resolution by first of Feb. And that's often because they're really more like vague wishes than solid intentions with an action plan around it. There's something that we thought we should have or would be nice to have. Really, they're no different than what we used to do with Santa when we were younger, where we'd sit on his knee and say, Hey, I really love this. You know, when someone asks us, what's your New Year's resolution? You kind of tell them what you love, not what you are wanting to work towards.

And one of the things I love about being part western and part eastern, so for those of you who don't know, I'm part, my heritage is part Scottish and part Chinese is that we would celebrate New Year's and then we would celebrate Chinese New Year's, not necessarily with one of these, this is my <laugh>, current favourite Haighs chocolate New Year's blocks. Any excuse, right? But with red envelopes stuffed with cash. Now, one of the things I loved having those two bites, quite literally, at New Year's is because the first one felt like it was, you know, fireworks and prawns the next day and you're still on holidays. And when you were asked what you wanna do that year, it really did feel like wishing. By Chinese New Year, you've kind of got a few weeks into the year, you'd had more of a sense of, this is actually what I wanna do And that wishing didn't really come true. Holidays were over for the most part. And you're kind of getting back into the business of the year. And the other thing that happens, or what happened with us, with Chinese New Years, there's a whole lot of rituals that go along with it. You know, there's a lot of things that you should and should not do. My nana is incredibly superstitious. So you did all the jobs on the Eve, you would make sure that you'd swept, you'd make sure that all this whole list of things were done because on New Year's Day, you were supposed to rest and celebrate and pass out these bad boys.

And what I wanna suggest is part of the success of setting yourself up for success financially and with goals and intentions for 2023, is having just that. It's realising that what you did before was kind of just a vague wish. And what we wanna do now, is have that intention, to have ritual around it, to have action behind it, and to know this is what I won't do and this is what I will be doing as we move forward.

As I said, one of the things I've loved about having my eastern and western heritage is that if the year didn't start so well, I could kind of reset a few weeks later. And I want to invite you to do that as well. If you know that the year hasn't quite been what you thought, I want you to sit down this weekend and decide what are you gonna stop doing this year when it comes to your finances? What are you, what just has not worked for you? And then just as importantly, what are you gonna start doing? If you set a vague wish around, I just wanna do money better, I want you to decide what does that look like? Let's be specific amount about it. Let's be measurable about it, and then let's put an action planned around it.

If you know you need help with that, on Chinese New Year's Day, on Sunday the 22nd, the doors open for the My Financial Adulting Plan. I would absolutely encourage you if for the new thing that you wanna bring in this year is that new energy, is that action plan, is that actually knowing, having the confidence to step into your finances, knowing that you have a plan that you've put together that you can enact that is the right one for you, then make sure you jump on that email and sign up when you receive it on Sunday.

Until then, I think it's really fitting to say what we used to say to each other on Chinese year, which was Gong Hei Fat Choy, which simply means wishing you essentially blessings and prosperity for the new year.