I love the fresh start of a new year. It gives us a beautiful opportunity to clarify our desires and create positive momentum!

This year I’m focusing on how I want to feel in 2022. Our feelings are what create our reality, because we attract our likeness. So when we feel good, we attract more good things, experiences and people into our lives.

When we focus on feeling good, we’re energised and inspired. So with that in mind, today I want to share my list of the first five things to do in 2022. Follow this list and you’ll start the New Year in the most powerful and exciting way!

The First 5 Things: How To Start The New Year

1. Practice gratitude for what you have right now.

Find a glass jar, some colourful pens, and some pieces of paper into small strips. Write down on each piece of paper something you are grateful for, or something that made you smile today, and put it inside the jar!

Do this every day; it’s your very own reminder of amazing things in your life, which you can come back to whenever you need a pick-me-up!

2. Build on your gratitude and share your happiness.

When you have happiness, you have everything! And as you know, happiness is an inside job. Make a point of doing at least one thing a day that makes you happy. Then share that happiness with those around you—friends, family, partner or spouse, colleagues, or whoever crosses your path that day.

Happiness is contagious, and sharing becomes compassion.

3. Think and be positive.

Welcome 2016 into your world with energy and enthusiasm just as you would an old friend who has just returned from traveling around the world. Think about how you shape your words, thoughts, and feelings, and notice where you allow negativity or self-doubt to creep in.

Be aware of what form or disguise it takes, sit with it, and then rearrange the words until they are positive affirmations: things that will help you to grow and evolve.

4. Create your own pressure-free bucket list.

Allow space for your dreams to become real in 2016. Make a dream board, or if traveling is your goal, then buy a map of the world and pin it up somewhere you will see it every morning when you wake up and just before you fall asleep.

Use colours, pictures, photos, stickers—make it sparkle and come alive! By writing your dreams down, you are putting them out there and inviting the universe to take notice and start helping you on your fabulous journey!

Remember, YOU have the power to live the life you LOVE. Manifest, manifest, manifest!

5. Practice letting go.

The power of letting go is fabulous yet and so powerful. How can you fill yourself up with happiness when you are weighed down with negative junk? To be open to new experiences in life, you need to make space for them!

Try this: imagine holding one negative thought, self-judgment, or whatever is holding you back, in your fist. Visualise standing on a bridge with a river running freely beneath you, the water rushing away into the distance. Open your hand over the edge of the bridge and release that negative energy.

Watch it float away. Breathe. Smile. You are free!