New Year, New Life: Myth or Reality?

Renowned author and journalist Larisa Parfentyeva, in her bestseller “100 Ways to Change Your Life,” noted that regardless of the time or calendar day, anyone can radically change their life by 360 degrees. Yet, for millions of people, January 1st represents a kind of “reincarnation.” Many promise themselves a new life starting from this day: some will regularly go to the gym, others will switch to a healthy lifestyle, and some will leave their unfulfilling jobs to start their own business.

Why January 1st is a New Life Stage for Many

Why is another January 1st a new life stage for many people? And how can you start living an alternative scenario right now?

Insights from Tatiana Isaenko

Tatiana Isaenko, a practicing coach, NLP practitioner, and founder of the first comprehensive transformation studio for women “Inversion,” shares her views:

“In my opinion, people don’t truly believe in a new life starting on January 1st. It’s just convenient for them to think so. Many live the entire year waiting for the ‘magical New Year’s miracle.’ They wait for their job to change by itself, for their husband to suddenly think of giving them flowers… People wait all year but do nothing. Why? Because New Year’s Eve is coming soon. And then, by the will of Father Frost or some other higher powers, everything will magically change.”

Any change is not easy; it’s a full-fledged work on oneself. It’s stepping out of your comfort zone, and what awaits there is unknown. I often use the metaphor of the “Dark Forest” with my clients. Imagine walking through a dark forest, feeling scared due to the unknown, not seeing the path, and not knowing where to go next. But once you turn on the light in this dark forest, the path becomes less frightening. The same goes for changes: before starting them, you need to lay out a clear and understandable path to these changes and decide exactly what your new life will be like.

Why Do People Prefer to Wait Rather Than Act?

This behavior stems from our ancestors, the post-war generation. Our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers were used to enduring and waiting, being content with what they had. Their mindset was: “It won’t always be bad. Good life will come someday. We just need to wait a little.” And so, from generation to generation, they passed this mindset to our grandparents, and they to our parents. Now, the pain of the post-war period is fading. We see that life can be completely different. However, no one has taught us how to live “differently.” This is why the professions of coach and psychologist are now in high demand—simply reading a smart book is not enough.

To change your life, you must genuinely want to change and firmly decide that the responsibility for your life lies solely with you. It doesn’t matter when you start making changes; what matters is the date by which you want to achieve these changes. Therefore, it’s better to focus on your personal deadline rather than January 1st. And you need a plan: in my work, I accompany clients for about 3 to 5 months and create a personal strategy map (a plan with deadlines) for each client. Thanks to this plan, we have a rough guideline and understanding of what should change in a person’s mindset by a certain date or period.

Why January 1st Changes Nothing

It’s simple: it remains at the level of words and dreams. There are no real practices or actions behind these promises. You need to be a responsible person to firmly promise yourself to change and start acting. For example, a woman wants to start losing weight on January 1st but does nothing to achieve this: she continues to eat high-calorie food and ignores sports and dietitian recommendations. There will be no result. The formula for real change is specific actions + taking responsibility for your own decisions and changes.

Who Should Change Their Life on New Year’s?

I believe life should be conscious. Consciousness is about understanding the consequences of certain decisions in your life. A conscious person will choose actions that lead to the desired result. For example, a woman says: “That’s it, starting from the New Year, I don’t want to work anymore.” It’s important to ask yourself: “Will I be happy in the future if I don’t work? Who will I be then? What will I do?” Remember: a happy person doesn’t choose “either I live happily in the present or I endure now and will be happy in the future.” They choose to take actions in the present that will make them happy today and tomorrow.

You need to change not only your life but also your habits. New habits are an important component of our changes. For example, you won’t lose weight if you have a habit of eating sweets at night. Even if you regularly visit the gym and exhaust yourself with exercises.

How to Start Making Changes in Life: A Coach’s Guide

Realize Your Problem

The goal of the first diagnostic consultation in coaching is to understand what hurts, where it hurts, why it hurts, and whether it can be fixed. I always work with the root cause, not the consequence. If a client tells me during a consultation: “I am unhappy,” for me, this is a consequence. If she says: “My husband left me because I was very jealous, and now I am unhappy, I don’t know how to live on,” this is the root cause.

It’s extremely rare for us to correctly identify and diagnose the problem ourselves. We can only understand the outcome. This is where specialists are needed, who can work through all the real root causes of problems, find out where they come from, and create new reasons for happiness.

Learn to Listen to Your Body

Learn to understand what you want at any given moment. Not what others expect or demand from you. When I ask the question “Who are you?” at the first meeting, 99.9% of my clients answer: “I am a mother, wife, employee.” This is an answer about social status. But the question is not about that; the question is “Who are you as a person, what are you like?” Are you vulnerable, strong or weak, a good friend, a faithful wife, and mother? You need to learn to be in contact with yourself, not who others require you to be.

Be Grateful

Be grateful to yourself for who you are, be grateful to your surroundings. Be grateful for the day that gave you a certain experience. The ability to say thank you to yourself and your life is an important step towards change.

Maintain the Balance of “Give and Take”

Don’t be selfish. Don’t just demand help and kindness from others.

Surround Yourself with the Right People

Analyze those around you (friends, colleagues, relatives). 90% of our success is our surroundings. It’s important to find a supportive environment that accepts you as you are, loves life, and thinks positively. Observe carefully those around you. Do you feel their support, or do you only expend energy?

Another question: where to find a supportive environment? It’s simple: go out more often, attend various master classes, seminars, courses, coaching sessions. There is an excellent opportunity to meet the right people for yourself.

Allow Yourself to Be Happy

Get rid of limiting beliefs, frameworks, and stereotypes in your mind. Remove the victim syndrome (everyone is bad, I am helpless in this cruel world). At the moment when you have already learned to listen to your body, emotions, learned to be grateful, maintain the balance of “give and take,” surrounded yourself with the right people, stand in front of the mirror and say to yourself: “I love you, I thank you, I forgive you, and you forgive me.” Only then, when you allow yourself to be happy, real changes happen.

Building a new happy life is like building a house with your own hands. It’s important to remember that the foundation of a happy life should always be responsibility for your life and consciousness. Don’t wait for “Monday.”