Human beings are hardwired to see a new year as the end of one set of experiences and the potential start of all new, even better, ones. This year in particular, as we enter the 2020s, we each have a powerful New Year's Day opportunity to jump start our lives and make the positive changes we've put off in the past.

Make your plans now to make the most of this moment. To get started, here are five suggestions to kick the year off right.

1: Do something different.

Our most ingrained habits are formed by daily, instinctive micro-decisions that keep us playing out limited roles and repeating old thoughts. As 2020 starts, take any opportunity to do things differently. There’s no need to go big. Often the smallest differences have the most impact because we do them so often. Try something as simple as changing the side of the bed you sleep on. Or visit a new coffee shop every day as you drive to work a new way. Mixing it up and avoiding repeated routines will go a long way to helping you think and act differently around the bigger events in your life.

2: De-clutter and clear your space.

Harmonious spaces reflect harmonious thinking, right? Reducing the clutter in your home or work space can help order and empty your mind, creating room for new ideas and plans. To mark the start of a new year, take this a step further by smudging your space using a sage stick or incense to clear out lingering energies. Smudging with herbs, burning the herb bundle like incense, is an honored tradition in many cultures to clear out what you no longer want and invite in the new.

3: Participate in self-care activities.

What better way to start the new year than to spend time in introspection and gentle movement, reducing stress levels and calming the spirit. Try something new for 2020 with special events designed to honor the changing calendar. Solshine yoga center in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for example, is inviting people to sign up for 108 Sun Salutations to welcome the new year by performing the traditional flowing series of yoga positions with others. The repeated sun salutations are meant to honor the sun, practice gratitude, challenge your mind, body and spirit, shed layers and welcome change, according to the organization’s event description. Search yoga centers near you for similar New Year’s Day events.

4: Get outdoors.

Make 2020 the year you connect with nature for better health and more aliveness. Look for New Year’s Day hikes, polar plunges (if you dare), or other outdoor group activities in your vicinity. New Year’s Day hikes are becoming a tradition in many regions and one with lots of benefits. Not only do they get people moving and outdoors being refreshed by nature, they are often free, bring multiple health benefits, and connect you with others in what can become an annual tradition.

5: Set your intentions for the year.

This New Year’s, ditch resolutions for the more sustainable practice of setting intentions. Visualize your best 2020 by letting yourself daydream about possible futures, identifying the ones that feel the most fun and energizing, then writing them down. Better yet, write a letter as your future self looking back on 2020 and noting all the wonderful events, people and achievements that came your way during the year. Note how it makes you feel, then carry that feeling into 2020 with you.

Bonus: However you decide to spend New Year’s Day, recognize the power of starting fresh. Here’s some wisdom on that idea from Mary Oliver, the beloved poet and Cape Cod resident who died in 2019. In her poem, Mornings at Blackwater, Oliver offers us some powerful advice on living.

Mornings at Blackwater

For years, every morning, I drank

from Blackwater Pond.

It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,

the feet of ducks.


And always it assuaged me

from the dry bowl of the very far past.


What I want to say is

that the past is the past,

and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what that will be,

darling citizen.


So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,


and put your lips to the world.

And live

your life.’

Mary Oliver