5 Ways to Start Your Year Strong

In this special first episode of 2025, Krys dives into the top five ways to kickstart your New Year with focus, intention, and energy. Whether your "New Year" starts on January 1st or a few days later, this episode is packed with practical, relatable, and inspiring tips to set the tone for an amazing year ahead.

Krys shares her word of the year, focus, and walks you through simple yet impactful actions you can take to create momentum, embrace new experiences, and connect with yourself and others. From choosing a theme for your year to making a small but healthy choice in your daily routine, these tips are designed to be approachable and actionable.

Grab a notebook, take a breath, and get ready to take charge of your New Year. 

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. Pick a Theme for Your Year: Why having a guiding word or theme can shape your year and keep you grounded.
2. Try Something New: The transformative power of novelty and how it can open up your perspective.
3. Start with a Healthy Breakfast: Nourishing your body as the first step to fueling your goals.
4. Set Solo Time: Creating intentional, distraction-free moments to reflect and reconnect with yourself.
5. Connect with Others: Simple ways to strengthen your relationships and set a positive tone for the year.

Episode Highlights:

• Krys shares personal insights on why focus is her theme for the year and how she plans to stay aligned with it.
• Practical suggestions for incorporating novelty into your day without feeling overwhelmed.
• The importance of mindful eating and starting your day with a nourishing meal.
• How intentional solo time can help you avoid the comparison trap and strengthen self-awareness.
• Creative ways to connect with loved ones, strangers, or even plan future interactions.

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• Discover Krys’s programs and updates: www.fitlikekrys.com 
• Have a topic suggestion or guest idea? Email Krys at: fitlikekrys@gmail.com
• Subscribe to the Fit Like Krys YouTube channel for video episodes and more inspiration.
• Listen to past episodes on Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

Connect with Krys:

• Follow on Instagram: @fit.like.krys
• Join the Fit Like Krys community for more tips, updates, and motivation.

Take Action:
Start your year off right by implementing one (or all!) of these tips. Don’t forget to share your word or theme for the year with Krys and the FLK Krew

Subscribe & Share:
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review. Share it with a friend who could use a little extra motivation to kick off their New Year strong!

Quote of the Episode:
“Fit is a mindset, and your year starts with the decisions you make today.”

Transcript

Krys [0:00 - 17:27]: Foreign. Welcome back to the Fit Like Chris podcast and Happy New Year. I. There was a lot of pressure. Well, I put a lot of pressure on myself thinking about, what is the first episode of the new year gonna be? Like, I don't even. Where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do? I got some guests coming up, but for the first episode, like, what do I do? Good news for you. I came up with a great idea because I feel like this is something that I could definitely use as a reminder, but all of us could use not only for New Year's Day, but for the first week. Because depending on what you did, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day might not be your actual New Year's Day. Maybe your New Year's Day is the second. Maybe it's Monday the sixth. Whatever it is, this episode is the top four five ways to spend your New Year's day or week. So this week, I'm going to give you my favorite tips to help start your year off strong. My word for the year is focus, because I am learning that intention is cool, but if you can't be focused, it only gets you so far. So that actually should be one of the things that I. I'm changing my whole podcast right now. I really think if you have a resolution, like, that's great. But if you don't, picking a word that you need or that you would like your life to, like, encapsulate or some word or feeling, that can be the theme of your year. And that's really where the intention starts. So top five ways to spend New Year's day, slash, week number one. Pick a theme. Pick a theme for your year. Pick a theme for your day. You can kind of start with your day, but your days add up to the year. So when we get to the end of the year, what do you want it to look like? What things will you have wanted to do or focus on? So rather than or in addition to picking something to achieve or something to work towards, pick a word or a theme that can support many things. For me, a resolution is not enough. I like to have just like a bunch of things and then kind of narrow it down to a few. But before that even happens, I have a theme. And my theme for the year is focus. So whether you press pause right now and take a second because you're inspired to think about a word, you could do that. Or just have a notebook and a pen or a paper right now and write down these steps, and you don't have to pressure yourself for the day, right? If it's New Year's Day and it doesn't happen because you didn't wake up till 3:00pm, like, that's fine. Also, like, what'd you do last night? But you could do it tomorrow or over the weekend or even on Monday. But try to get it done in the first week of the year. Because I really do believe that has a huge impact on the rest of your year based on experience also. All right, so pick a theme, pick a focus. Number two, one new thing a day. And this is not every day for the year. This is just day one of your new year. Like, do something new. It doesn't have to be remarkable. Like do a new hairstyle. Like put on something. Buy something that you typically wouldn't buy. Get a different order from the bagel place. You know, try just put yourself in a listen to like a new band. When's the last time you discovered new music? Trying something new is something that has changed my whole life. And it starts with the beginning of the year. Even if you only try something new on the first day, you start your year off a little bit differently and you kind of open up your perspective and the possibilities. Cause you're like, if you could just try a new thing today. I mean, there's infinite amount of things that you can do and try. So I think that again, in my experience, trying something new enriches your life. Like. Like I. You know how when you're watching social media, like you're scrolling and depending on what season you are in life, like, if you're especially this time of year, like it's cold and dark and unless you live in California and you're just like scrolling and you're like. And you feel like you're not doing enough, whether that feeling is like valid or whatever, trying something new, even if it's super small, really helps you to avoid that, like, comparison and fomo because you're living your life. So instead of thinking about living someone else's life, and especially in the new year where you're gonna see a ton of people embarking on certain journeys or trying cool things, like, you do the cool thing, like try a new recipe. There are so many small things you could do right at home. There is a world of new in your home. So trying something new on New Year's day or New Year's week number three. This is a super basic one, but I have to include it because it just changes your day, days and life. Have a healthy breakfast. Regardless of what you did the night before and how much you really want the bacon, egg and cheese with the. With the jalapeno cream cheese, and tater tots from O's Bagel and Hoboken. Regardless of how bad you want that. Set your year off with choosing to nourish your body. And you can have an amazing breakfast that it doesn't have to be like, so, you know, like egg whites and spinach. Right? Like, you can make a really good, like, Google, like, delicious, healthy breakfast right now, and there'll be 10 recipes that come up and choose something that looks and it'll be so good. And you're gonna start your day feeling fueled, and you just already started your day with a great decision, and that's gonna kind of kick off the healthy breakfast helps to kick off the day in general, right? Like, sometimes dinner can be our downfall, especially if you didn't plan it. But you can always wake up and start the day like, fresh. And a healthy breakfast is such a great way to not only start your day, but to start your year. Number four, set solo time. Five minutes, ten minutes. If you can get 30 minutes. Amazing. Remarkable. That might not be in the cards for you on New Year's Day, depending on if you got kids running around, family in town, animals running around. If you can't stay focused for more than five minutes, there might be a lot of reasons that setting solo time is hard. But what I would love you to do is pick an amount of time that feels challenging. But okay, right? Like, you're like, 15 minutes is. It's uncomfortable, but I can do it. No phone, no tv, no screen. Put yourself in a bedroom, a bathroom, an area where there's no. Nothing to distract you. Okay. The most boring room in your house. Get a pen and a paper. Sit down. No structure. Maybe write down a brainstorming session for your word. If you haven't thought of a word or a theme for a year, maybe think about all the things you're grateful for before you start a whole new year of collecting new memories. Maybe write down your grocery list for the day, for the week. There's so many ways that you can use that time, but starting your year off feeling the effects of your company and, like, that's something that I didn't do till much later in life. Like, hanging out with myself was like, the worst idea of a good time for me. It was just like, oh, I'd rather do anything else than be alone. And now it's one of the things I look forward to the most. And it was only because I Forced myself to be in that situation. And it was at the start of two years ago now. And I just shut everything off. Pen, paper. And I think on my. I can't remember what I wrote. It was probably just like a brain dump or brainstorm. I was just writing whatever kind of came to mind. There was no structure. But the feeling that I had coming off of just spending, you know, 15 minutes intentionally not looking at my phone, not doing anything else, and kind of spending time with myself and my mind, which, again, is. Can be very scary if you've never done it before. You just know yourself a little bit better after that. And that is really cool. And even if you only do it for the first day of the year, that's okay. You should definitely try to develop a practice of that via, you know, meditation or yoga or journaling. But I'm just talking about the top five ways to spend New Year's Day or New Year's Week. So don't get ahead of yourself. Just commit to spending some time with yourself today. And then the last piece is Connect. This is something that can be really challenging if you live alone, if you're estranged from your family, if maybe you're just not in the head space that you want to connect. Maybe, you know, New Year's Day, it's a new year, new opportunity for you to set the tone for. For your year in your life. And it's really easy to get in our heads and to again fall into that trap of comparing your life and yourself to either previous versions of you, versions of you that you've never been, or somebody else. And intentional solo time is important, but that's different than spiral time. Spending time by yourself and just spiraling in negative thoughts is not intentional solo time. That's just probably a time where you need to get up and move around. And so my last way that I'm going to make sure that I include in my New Year's Day is to connect. And how do you do that if you are kind of dealing with all those things I mentioned before? Could be a phone call, and maybe it's gonna be uncomfortable for the first two minutes of the call. Maybe the first, not even two minutes, the 30 seconds of the call, just calling someone to say hi. You can connect with a total stranger just getting out of your house and, you know, complimenting someone on something to start a conversation. It could be like if you do. If you do live with someone and you do live with family or a partner, watching a movie together, having phoneless time, which I love Kind of setting that intention. Because when you connect with someone and you have your phones around, it's kind of annoying to be that person of like, oh, you're on your phone and get off your phone. It's like, we're all on our phones. But if you want to kind of connect with someone, just asking that person and saying, like, you know, would you be open to having, you know, 30 minutes or an hour of just kind of us, like without the phone, so I can feel a little closer to you. And outside of that, connecting through planning also, like, maybe there's not someone you can talk to or see today, but you can reach out to plan something. And that's also a way to connect. And that's a reminder that you are. No matter how daunting a new year might be to some people. I just remember being in that place of like a new year with, like, all these expectations, and I was like, in such a dark place that I didn't even want to think about. I didn't want to think about, you know, happy things. I kind of forced myself to this structure of spending a little time with myself to, like, see what's on my mind. Connecting and not isolating. Staying connected to people. Starting my day with, like, nourishing meal so that, like, I'm. Even if it was just me, right? Like, even if you're not cooking for your family, if you're just cooking for yourself, spending the time and effort to make something for you. Choosing a word that not only is gonna help to shape your day and week, but it's gonna help to shape your year. Write it big, make it visual, put it on your mirror. I had, and I still do it to this day on my. Any place that I go often or that I look often, I'll always have like a post it or a card with a message or a. That's just a constant reminder so that when we get in our heads, as we always do, you have a reminder of what you set out for your year to be. And I think that was my last one. I feel like I'm forgetting one. Let me see. Oh, the solo time. Solo time. Oh, the new thing. The new thing. I said the solo time. The new thing. Yeah, I think that could be very overwhelming. So if you think about it like you have to climb a mountain or like, you know, do something grand, which is cool, you can plan that, but doing something new, you can literally just like. What's that movie called? Oh, man, I'm so bad with movies. There's a movie where you probably know it. There's a movie where they do a weird thing so that, like, you can never replicate the moment. Like, they just, like, stand up and, like, you know, throw a fork and spin and, like, do two squats. I don't know. But, like, even doing something in your own body just knew that. Like, just being silly and knowing that you can create that newness and get out of that, like, hamster wheel that we sometimes get in, where you just, like, do the same thing, like, over and over and over. And all of a sudden it's decept December of 2025, and you're like, I haven't done anything. Just doing, like, new little things at home, trying new ways of looking, new ways of looking at things. And again, another really good one. New music. A lot of us just stop. I think the Rolling Stone. I know it was the Rolling Stone, but I can't remember what age they said. I think it was 35. That, like, over 90% of people stopped listening to new music. So if you're in that category or if you're getting close to that category, just that you can be part of the 90% or you could be part of the 10% and listen to new music all the time and not be one of those people that's like, music is so bad today. It's not. You're just not. You're just listening to the shit on the radio. So you know there's way more music out there. This is going into a whole other thing. So Happy New Year. And there are so many things that you can do, but just choose. And if you have a problem choosing, I just gave you five ways to start your year and to have an amazing New Year's day and know that you can and know that you have the capability, capability to do that. Just set an intention focus and always remember that you can. And of course, fit is a mindset. All right, guys, I am so excited to spend this year and have all these amazing podcast episodes for you. Remember to subscribe to YouTube so you can get a notification when I post a new episode. Of course, you could always listen on Spotify. And if you have anything that you'd like to talk about, or maybe there's someone that you'd like to suggest be a special guest, please email me@fitlikechrismail.com all of the information on all my programs and all the stuff that I'll be doing for the new year is on fitlikechrisot gmail.com fitlightchris.com There it is right there. All right, guys. Happy New Year. I'm sure you're going to hear that a bunch more times this week, so I'm going to stop saying it. And thank you for listening. Listening.