It’s a new year, a time which tends to be somewhat synonymous with the hopeful task of re-evaluating one’s life. New Year’s resolutions, fresh starts, honest intentions to better yourself and the world around you – all noble, all seemingly within reach, and yet all gargantuan in their own way. The pressure to completely refresh your life, top to bottom, is huge and inevitably leads to early failure.
This is why it’s crucial to remind yourself just how beneficial an incremental approach to change can be. Let’s look at a common goal many people look towards achieving in the new year, whether or not they phrase it in the same word: independence. Relying on others for help, for accountability or even for direction can lead to what feels like a rudderless life. Everyone wants to be able to take initiative in one way or another; telling yourself to do so from the 1st of January is not the way to achieve this. How, then, should you?
Understanding Where You Want More Independence
Your first port of call, naturally, should be to drill down into the kind of independence you wish to achieve. Where, in life, are you looking to exercise more autonomy? Where are the areas of life where you already show independent thinking, and how can you extrapolate that to other aspects?
Independence means more than it initially appears to mean; it is not just something you acquire when you leave home for university or work. Independence is itself an iterative process that touches so many elements of life. Being able to cook well for yourself is one aspect. Another might simply be the ability to make quick decisions in your own favour. What form of independence is most important to you, conceptually?
Building Practical Skills That Support Everyday Freedom
With some idea of where and why you want to achieve more independence, you now have the information necessary to make practical steps towards achieving that independence. No more broad platitudes or directives to “be better”; it’s time to take small and actionable steps towards grounding your new independence in reality.
Time management is one simple way you can regain control. With the right approach to to-do lists, structuring your day and making space for decision-making, you can dramatically improve your level of control over each day. In a broader sense, independence is about granting yourself permission – permission to book one of those last-minute holidays you haven’t felt ‘allowed’ to book, or permission to buy that takeaway as a treat for a working week well done.
Creating Routines That Strengthen Your Self-Reliance
Structure is, truly, the key and operative word when it comes to inculcating a sense of true independence within you. Even small, consistent routines act as anchors that give stability without limiting your freedom. Independence isn’t a loose sense of spontaneity but instead a knowledge of control.
This is what makes time management so valuable when it comes to regaining a feeling of independence, even with something as nebulous as taking initiative without external support. You have a literal roadmap with which you can track progress, keep yourself on target, and remind yourself of just how well you’re doing. Over time, these routines gradually build confidence, helping you to feel generally more capable of handling life independently.
