Reasons to Heart January

There are indeed reasons to be cheerful in January! It shouldn't be dreaded or perceived as the anti-climactic month of the year - especially as it starts on a high note! Ringing in the New Year and its joyful countdown shouldn't turn into a hapless comedown. If you need a little convincing, then this post is for you.

Sitting on top of the world! Europe from space, photography by ESA astronaut Tim Peake, via Twitter

I heart January for many simple reasons. Here's ten of them, at the top of my head:
 

• The year (habitually) starts on a high note as a festive celebration. Keep it up! Don't get yourself sucked into the bad vibes of the fatalist and the disenchanted.
• Treat the new year as a blank canvas for your projects, ideas. A new start of sorts. Visualise that joy you felt at midnight and turn it into an impetus to get started on a project. It could be anything from rewriting your resume, to turning your balcony into an herb garden, to researching an author or a discipline.
• In the northern hemisphere, days have been getting longer since the end of December, bonus! This makes Winter less drab! If you live in the southern hemisphere, fret not! The Summer there has only just started so there are still many days of good sunny weather to look forward to!
•  Be kind to yourself and don't go overboard with resolutions: keep them few, simple and achievable.
• If you need a little retail encouragement, you have Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day and other landmark celebrations to look forward to, if only in terms of their window-dressing quality and the cutesy presents. Spending cash is optional when you do window-shopping!
• Reconnect with family or friends who you are not in regular contact with. In France we have les Voeux (New Year wishes) tradition, whereby we send cards or give phonecalls to people within our circles especially to wish them a Happy New Year and catch up on the news at the same time.
• Have a couple of appointments to look forward to in January, like a visit to the hairdresser (with a new hairstyle or hair colour to boot), or starting a new class or hobby.
• Go out there and enjoy nature and witness it getting ready for Spring: buds and birds! Even if you live in town, you will still be able to catch glimpses of it in your daily endeavours or by nipping down to your local park.
• Slip into a new healthy lifestyle regimen to shed those extra pounds and feel more energetic. And if you are in the cleansing mode, you may even consider a pre-Spring clean round the home or catch up with any overdue paperwork. Addressing procrastination may not sound like fun but the quicker you get round to it, the more time you will have to enjoy the rest of the year!
• Yet most of all, you should just enjoy life because life goes at the speed of light and before you know it, youth will have morphed into middle age and middle age will have morphed into retirement age... You should simply be grateful for what you have and put things into perspective. Life could be better but life could also be worse. Life is a gift and the start of a New Year is an extra validation of life. It is so good to be alive and this is the number one reason for being cheerful, my friend!

Galapagos Islands, photography by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, via Flickr