How have you started to prepare for 2021?

Sometimes life gets really busy, and we get ourselves into routines and find ourselves using systems of support that we have outgrown or that simply may not be as effective as we had hoped.

January is a really great time to ‘take stock’ of what you’ve been doing up to this point and reflect on where things might go from here. It’s a chance to look closely at the year that has been and to think about how you might prepare for the months (and year) ahead – particularly when it comes to support strategies and any therapies for the person you support, your child, or yourself.

Some good questions to ask yourself might be:

– What worked really well for the person I was supporting (or for me or my child) over the past year?

– How do I know which strategies were successful? Did I see signs of enjoyment and personal growth in the person I was supporting?

– Would I do these things again this coming year? Or would I use similar strategies to build on experiences from last year?

And it’s also important to ask yourself questions such as:

– What didn’t work (over the past year) for the person I was supporting?

– Were there strategies that I tried, or therapies or support systems that just had no impact at all (or that perhaps had a negative impact of some kind)? Did I see signs of unhappiness with some of these things that I tried, or perhaps signs of being overwhelmed or frustrated?

– Did I feel overwhelmed myself with any of these processes?

– And if so, what can I learn from all of these experiences?

When preparing for the year ahead, it’s worthwhile making sure that we’re setting ourselves up for success, and not simply reliving experiences that we would rather not go through again.

So how do you go about preparing for a new year? We would love to hear! 🙂