No matter what you went through last year, we can rebuildand regenerate.

We’re a month into the new year, and those echoes of 2020are still bouncing around our skulls and hearts. Lots of us thought we’d wakeup in a new season of some prestige TV series, ready to start fresh plotlines,but those cliffhangers from last year are still messing with us.

How can we escape into the future? Here are some practical tips to help you leave those emo vibes in the past where they belong (or at least stop them taking over completely).

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Try not to dwell on it

Last year was a massive challenge for most people in a wholebunch of different ways. We don’t expect you to completely bury the mental andemotional issues you faced in 2020, but it’s helpful if you can acknowledgethem without thinking about them too much. Or going on about them. Here’s atip: turn off those apps and galleries your phone makes about what you were up toon this day… they’re only going to hurt your feelings.

Get into some recovery activities

Recovery activities are things that reduce and remove stress from your mindtanks. For some people this might mean soaking up the sunshine in a park, dancing around your room or taking up yoga. For others, it might be learning a new skill or creating something. For everyone else, it means lying in a room full of puppies until 2020 seems like a bad dream fading into mist…

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It's a lot.

Build better habits

This is good advice in general. If you’re always thinkingabout how you can be a tiny bit better today than you were yesterday, you can becomeone of the planet’s best people. We’ve talked about goodhabits here, and we’ve also talked about consistency as a keyto success. Now is a great time to relaunch yourself as a slightly greaterhuman being. Then do the same thing tomorrow. And the next day. Then have a rest,because this stuff is tiring and sometimes you want to just be, youknow?

Think about the future

We’re all capable of having a bad year, and the best thingabout 2020 is everyone understands it was rough. That gives you some space toprocess everything above, then start thinking about what comes next for you.What would you like to achieve? What did you miss most last year, and how canyou get to where you want to be in life? Back in a simpler, pre-COVID time, we talked about bouncingback from a bad year. Some of that advice is probably still useful – just pictureus wearing masks while writing it.

Listen to some retro synthwave

Can’t hurt, can it?