How To Finish the Year Strong: Return to the Habits That Make You Feel Like You

In this episode, I help you ditch the “I’ll start again in January” mindset and show you how to step into the new year already feeling strong, grounded and proud of yourself — not frazzled or starting from scratch.

If you started the year journaling, meditating, doing yoga, taking your supplements, going to bed early… and then somewhere along the way life happened, this episode is your gentle reminder that you can always begin again. And you don’t have to wait for January to do it.

You’ll learn:

• 🌿 Why you started your habits in the first place — and how to reconnect with that feeling
• 🧘‍♀️ How to reintroduce habits without overwhelm (no more “I’ll do everything perfectly starting Monday”)
• 🔁 Why we stop doing the very things that made us feel good
• ⏳ How to build momentum before the new year instead of limping across the finish line
• 💛 How to make your habits feel like tiny acts of love, not punishment
• 🌠 A powerful visualization for the version of you on December 31st — and how to become her now

This episode is a practical, comforting, honest reset for anyone who wants to finish the year with intention, ease and confidence. No pressure. No perfection. Just gentle recommitment to yourself.

If it resonates, I’d love to hear — come say hello on Instagram at @bethgoodrham. And if you know a friend who needs this reminder, please share the episode with them. It would mean the world to me! 

Transcript

0:00

Hi, and welcome to the podcast. It is so lovely to have you here today. If you are a regular listener, then thanks so much for joining me, and if you are a new listener, welcome. I hope that you enjoy today's podcast episode. So I have a question for you, and I want you to be honest for a second. Do you remember back in January or at any time earlier in the year when you were journaling every morning doing yoga? Meditating, taking collagen or magnesium or creatine, going to bed early, whitening your teeth, and just generally being that person. And then somewhere in the middle of the year, life happened. Today we're talking about how to gently, powerfully, and confidently get back to those habits now, not in January because you've still got time left in this year, and what you do now completely shapes how you feel. Stepping into the new one Today I'm going to walk you through something I know so many of us need right now, especially when we are so busy. You're going to learn how to reconnect with why you started those habits in the first place. How to reintroduce them without pressure, how to stay consistent even when life gets chaotic and how to finish the year feeling like a total badass instead of limping into January thinking, Ugh. I'll start again later because you don't need to wait for the new year to start again. You can start now. So let's start here with a little rewind. I'm always a fan of a little rewind. Why did we start those habits in the first place? Because this question is the foundation of everything. Maybe journaling made you feel really calm and really clearheaded for the day. Maybe yoga helped to get rid of some of those aches and pains and made you feel at home in your body again, maybe magnesium helped you to sleep better or to ease your anxiety. Maybe meditation gave you a moment of blissful peace in a really busy, noisy season of life. I think it's really important for us to think back and remember how it felt to be that version of ourselves, that version who was ticking the boxes, and who was benefiting from those little daily habits that we were doing. That version of us that had those little rituals going and that benefited from them and enjoyed doing them, and that made them feel good about themselves. The question is, when we were doing them, how did our mornings feel? How did our evenings feel? What felt easier? What felt more possible? We often remember the effort, but we forget the reward. And sometimes we don't fall off habits because we are lazy or undisciplined. We fall off because we lose sight of what they gave us. So I want us just to pause and to reconnect with that now and to remind ourselves why we started, remind ourselves what we loved about it, and remind ourselves how good it felt. It's not that the motivation has gone, it's just that it's a little bit dusty. There's also something that I've noticed within myself, and it's that I will do something and I will see the benefits of it, but because I see the benefits of it, I feel better, and then because I feel better, I don't do the thing that made me feel better in the first place. Let me give you an example just in case that sounds entirely convoluted at the start of the year, and I have done podcast episodes and a blog post on this. I had a really strong morning routine and I used to love it. In the winter, I would come downstairs before anybody else. I'd light a candle. I would do my journaling. I'd have my timer set. I was using an app alongside this. So each morning I do a little bit of meditation. I do some affirmations. I'd do some visualizations, I'd do some journaling. I'd maybe pull a few cards. And I was doing that and I absolutely loved it and I felt great. And then I think as the clocks changed and as we got into the warmer months, I started to think, I don't really need that anymore. I'm fine. That's okay. I'm not sure what else I was doing. Instead, I was perhaps going out running a bit earlier because it was a bit lighter or faffing, I don't know. And then slowly the thought started to creep back in and I started to think, do you know what? You probably really ought to start doing your morning routine again. You're not feeling quite as strong in the mornings as you were. You're feeling a little bit wonky. You're feeling a little bit off sometimes. Start your morning routine, Beth. Why don't you get up and start your morning routine? And I had this tussle with myself and I was like, no, I'm fine now. I'm fine. Now. I'm using that time for something else. I think I've worked in some early morning workouts. I thought, well, exercise is just as beneficial. I don't need to be doing the other stuff. And then I hit a bit of a brick wall and someone said to me. You used to feel really good when you did your morning routine. I remember you telling me about that. Why aren't you doing it anymore? I thought, yeah, that's a really good point. Why aren't I doing it anymore? So that is also something that I think we need to be aware of. The classic people go on medication to feel better than, they feel better than they stop taking the medication than they don't feel great. Again. It's the same with small habits and rituals that we do ourselves. So that's also something just to have at the back of your mind. In fact, as I'm saying this, are you seeing anything in your mind? Can you see yourself doing anything that you know you used to do that made you feel good, that you stopped doing? Because if that's the case, that's probably a sign that that is one of the things to start thinking about doing again. So let's have a little chat about how to reintroduce them without overwhelming yourself, because this is where people often go wrong. They go, right. I'm going to journal every morning. I'm going to do yoga five times a week. I'm going to meditate daily. I'm going to take all of my supplements. I'm going to walk 10,000 steps. Go to bed at 9:30 PM Wake up at oh, no, no, that's not a reset. That's too much. That's a burnout plan. So instead we just want to pick one or two habits to start off with just one or two. I can tell you exactly what mine are going to be. Well, I can tell you exactly what the first one's going to be. That's going to be taking my collagen again. How many times have I fallen off the collagen bandwagon and I don't even know why. I don't mind taking it. I've got lots of it in the cupboard. There is just absolutely no reason whatsoever that I don't keep taking it is perhaps because I can't see the immediate effects, and I know it takes time to see effects. I am not a teenager who wants instant results. I get that, but even so, I just don't always do it. So that will be the thing that I promise. I'm going to start back on again. But really, whatever it is needs to feel genuinely doable in your real life, not in some imaginary life that we're hoping we might have one day, but in the life we have now. So maybe it's five minutes of journaling. Maybe it's a short yoga flow a couple of times a week, or before bed even. Maybe it's just taking your supplements consistently every morning. Maybe it is switching off your phone half an hour before bed or whitening your teeth once a month. I don't know. Whatever works for you. Whatever you were doing before that worked. Before it didn't work. But small things count massively because what we are really doing here is we are rebuilding our identity as well. We are reminding ourselves, I'm someone who keeps promises to myself. And once we start showing up in small ways, momentum builds and then it gets easier to add the next thing. It gets easier to habit stack, and that is the best way to bring new habits into our ecosystem. Also put it into your calendar if it's not something that you're doing daily or set an alarm on your phone. I had an alarm go off on my phone this morning when I was driving to see my mum. I dropped my daughter off at school. I was driving to see my mum, to pick her cat up to take it to the vet for an upper operation, and my podcast was rudely interrupted by an alarm which went off, which said. 8:00 AM Wake Mouse up now. My daughter had set that alarm on my phone so that I could wake her up sometime last week when she didn't need to wake up early, because obviously she couldn't set an alarm on her own phone. But it did just remind me about the benefit of having alarms set on our phone with a little note as to what it was for, but yes, put it in your calendar or set an alarm. Treat it like an appointment with yourself and for yourself, and one that is non-negotiable. Imagine you had paid to attend that appointment as if you were going to the dentist or as if you were going to work out with a personal trainer, or as if you were going to the hairdresser or something that you'd paid for and something that there might be a consequence to financially or otherwise if you didn't keep it. Now I want you to imagine something. Bear with me for a second. Picture yourself on December the 31st, the last day of the year. Picture yourself just before midnight if you'd like. What do you want to feel like? What do you want to be proud of, and what habits did you gently bring back into your life? Do you want to feel grounded? Do you want to feel calm? Do you want to feel strong? Do you want to feel like you show up for yourself? Or do you want to feel like you've spent all of December just saying to yourself, I'll start again in January because you know. The hours or seconds later, January's going to arrive and you're just gonna be feeling like, oh, I gotta start again. Oh no, because here's the truth. January doesn't have superpowers. It's just a date on the calendar. And we are still us. You are still you. I'm still me. We are still us. But if we put the work in now, slowly, gently, realistically, even I can manage to take my collagen every day, we enter the new year already in motion. We are not starting from scratch. We are not feeling behind. We're already the person we said we wanted to be. We are that person that has shown up for ourselves, that's committed to ourselves and is making appointments with ourselves that we keep. And something else that really matters here. Is this when December is, its usual chaotic self, and when Christmas is busy and life ramps up, then we won't just throw everything to the wolves because we'll already have our foundation in place. We won't be relying on motivation. We are not relying on forcing. We are relying on a steady rhythm that we've already got in place and that feels so much safer. But we also need to talk about fun. Because our habits shouldn't feel like punishment. If they feel heavy or miserable, we are not going to stick to them. So we've got to make them enjoyable or as enjoyable as possible. And I dunno about you, but I'm quite good at this first bit. I can buy the pretty journal I, can have the nice pen and it works for a while, but hopefully. It then becomes part of our daily routine. So we continue in any event, but we can put the music on while we stretch. We can pair our supplements with a nice coffee or tea moment if that's your thing. We can put nice pajamas and and as in my case, I can put my collagen in warm water to dissolve it a little bit so it doesn't feel gloopy. And remind me of the disgusting bright pink medicine that we often used to have to take as kids. Ideally our habits should feel like support, like care, like tiny acts of love that we get to give to ourselves. And I know that sounds really cheesy and it kind of is, but it's also true. They're not meant to feel like another thing on our to-do list. So here's what I want you to take away from today. Reconnect with why you started the habits you started in the first place. Remember how those habits made you feel. Start small and strategic and just try and reintroduce one or two habits, not 10. Even if it's just one or two habits, couple of times a week, it's better in terms of results than not doing anything at all, and it's definitely better for how you feel about yourself going into the new year. So visualize the end of the year, the version of you you want to be on December the 31st. Start becoming her now. And this is as much of a pep talk to myself as it is to anybody else. Make it enjoyable. Make it feel like something you look forward to because finishing the year strong, it doesn't mean being perfect, which is just as well it means being intentional, which I think we can all do, and it means choosing ourselves. Even when life is busy and we deserve that. Before I finish, I've just got a really funny story to tell you about the ladies who live in my mum's retirement village. So I went to see her the other day and she was downstairs in the art room. There was a group of ladies, about four or five of them, and there's some renovations going on in her retirement village, and they're doing it in stages. So what this means is that. Various rooms like the art room or the woodworking room or the library aren't up and running in the way that they will be when the work is finished. And one of the ladies was saying, there's not going to be enough room in the new library for the computers. And the reason for that is because now because of younger generations, we have to have a self-care room. What is a self-care room all about? It's all about just looking after yourself and being selfish. To which one of the other ladies said, well, when you get to our age, you've got no time for that sort of thing. Anyway, I kind of stood on the side smirking silently to myself. I get where they're coming from, but I do think there is time in life for self-care as well, and we all deserve that. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. It honestly means so much to me that you are here. I hope that you've enjoyed the episode. If it resonated with you, please come and tell me. I love hearing from you. You can find me on Instagram at Beth Goodham. I'll very happily share any comments that you ping my way and tag you in. And if you think someone else might benefit from this little reminder, please share the episode with them too. I dunno about you, but I love to follow my favorite podcast just so that their new episodes ping in as soon as they're released and I don't have to go and hunt for them. So if you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, that would be amazing and in the meantime, have a lovely week. You've absolutely got this. You take care. Lots of love and bye for now.