Happy New Year to you! Already we are a few days in but I hope that this year for you heralds unexpected opportunities and, given last year, you are learning new and effective ways of doing your best each day.

Well done for finishing through with assignments; well done for reaching out to friends who needed your listening ear; well done for completing your degree even though you did so from home; well done for continuing to put in your application forms for jobs. Well done for making that call and seeking advice.

Please do keep talking to yourself with great encouragement and care. And do keep encouraging your friends and those around you.

I know that for pupils and students already this 2021 year comes with massive uncertainties and frustrations as term times are changing. School and university is not ‘happening’ in a way that you want it to be. Expectations and ‘should be’s’ are being dashed and it is with this in mind that I want to remind you of a very useful tool – using the phrase ‘I WONDER’?

In wondering about ideas, so your mind is alerted to search for new possibilities. Tensions about how you want things to be diffuses considerably, and relaxes your mind to accept a different outcome this is not necessarily a bad outcome. Below are a couple of ideas, but do add your own ‘I wonder’.

I wonder what this new term will actually be like? …

I wonder how I CAN do to make this term the best of terms, despite circumstances? …

I wonder what I need to do study extremely effectively today? …

I wonder what I can do today so that I end this day satisfied having worked diligently towards that goal?

I wonder what this year will reveal – and what amazing things will happen that will surprise me! …

Happy New Year.