As 2024 winds down, the arrival of 2025 offers a fresh slate to set new goals, embrace change, and build momentum in both personal and professional endeavors. Whether you’re planning to level up your career, focus on health, or strengthen relationships, the new year is a perfect opportunity to realign and recharge. Here are actionable tips to help you start 2025 with clarity, motivation, and a renewed sense of purpose. Ways to Prepare for the New Year . Reflect on Successes Before preparing for the new year, look back on the small to big accomplishments in the passing year of 2024. Feeling content for successes in your personal life, academic, or professional career will boost your confidence and encourage you to start 2025 with determination. Review Unfulfilled Goals and Challenges Take time to look at the resolutions and goals of 2024. It is quite normal to have unfulfilled dreams and uncherished desires this year. Try to recognize shortcomings in efforts and identify challenges. This can prevent you from making similar mistakes. Thus, you can overcome the passing year’s challenges and set attainable goals for the year ahead. Read Social Media Addiction: How to detach yourself from the cycle Start Gratitude Journaling  In the coming year, you can start the habit of journaling. Nowadays, many free Android and iOS apps are available for online journaling. Those are simple to use. You can also maintain a paper diary for this purpose. You can write down moments of happiness and gratitude due to achievements in your personal life, academics, or professional career. Any memorable incident, such as an exciting traveling experience, that occurred in the passing year can also be mentioned in the journal. A grateful mind will help you start the new year with an optimistic mindset. Set Attainable Goals New Year's resolutions often remain unfulfilled because people tend to set big, hard-to-achieve, overwhelming, and sometimes unrealistic goals. To avoid this, consider what you want to accomplish in your personal, academic, and professional life in 2025. Now, break down big goals into smaller, achievable steps or objectives. Focus on mental health, physical health, career, relationships, learning, etc. Read How to let go of a lifelong dream and embrace a new one? Depending on specific goals, the objectives may involve actions like yoga, meditation, seeking therapy, reducing stress, joining a gym, fostering better work-life balance, learning new skills, aiming for a promotion or scholarship, pursuing new opportunities, etc. Declutter Physical and Digital Spaces A clean and tidy environment in your living and workspace can help you create a fresh start for the New Year.  You can schedule time to clean different rooms and areas of your home. The free spaces, empty walls, and cleaned areas can be used for diverse purposes, like adding handy furniture or simply doing artistic decoration. Decluttering your wardrobe is also necessary to separate old and unused clothes and accessories. You can send those for donations or resell. Read IKIGAI: The Japanese Secret to a Long Healthy life Removing unwanted gadgets and documents can give you scope to decorate your office or workspace smartly. Furthermore, digital decluttering like cleaning up your email inbox, updating old software, and backing up necessary files can make the screens and interfaces of your smartphone, laptop, and computer safer, more user-friendly, and more organized. Set Financial Plan Skillfully Review your finances for the passing year of 2024. Check the inventories of your earnings, expenditures, and savings. Try to find the sectors of overspending so that you can avoid wasting money on the same things in 2025. It would be wise to set a budget and plan for any upcoming expenses. Nowadays, many financial management apps are available on Google Play and iOS platforms that can help you manage finances in everyday life. Moreover, look for new possibilities of additional income opportunities and more savings in the coming year. Setting achievable and organised financial goals can help you increase your bank credits at the end of the year. Read How to find your passion for a more fulfilling career?

The overall Business Confidence Index (BCI) for 2022 stood at 74.4, indicating a positive outlook for business conditions over the next six months, according to the Bangladesh Business Confidence Survey Report 2022-23. Business entities across Bangladesh are confident that the volume of orders for the manufacturing sector, demand for services in the service sector, selling prices, and business activity will increase in the next six months.  As a result, businesses are willing to expand their employment and investment over the same period. However, business entities, especially in the manufacturing sector, have low confidence in costs, indicating the need for immediate action to address the cost burden of businesses, including the cost of electricity, water, gas, rent, and materials. The Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) and the USAID-funded Feed the Future Bangladesh Trade Activity jointly launched the "5th Business Confidence Survey Report 2022" Sunday at a hotel in Dhaka. The survey was conducted between September and November 2022, covering 567 business entities to analyse the existing business condition in the last six months (March 2022 – August 2022) and anticipate turning points in the economic activities for the next six months (December 2022 – June 2023) to enable businesses to prepare and plan accordingly to mitigate risks. Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun said the 5th Business Confidence Survey is significant as it has applied the methodology of harmonised business confidence survey recommended by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Statistics Directorate. Read more: Over 200 foreign delegates to join Bangladesh Business Summit 2023: Jasim "We are pleased to have learned that the overall Business Confidence Index (BCI), conducted by BUILD, gave an optimistic perception of business conditions despite the challenges Bangladesh is currently facing due to the global economic turmoil," he said. "The other scores in the survey show some visible recoveries of business activities and emerging business confidence. However, the cost confidence plummeted to as low as 22.4 over the next six months and the government must take this into serious consideration in fiscal and monetary measures." BUILD CEO Ferdaus Ara Begum said the upward movement in the BCI was driven by improvement in the sentiments for six out of seven components of the BCI, namely, employment, the volume of order or demand for service, business activity, selling price and investment. Out of the seven components, only the overall business cost index is negative giving a pessimistic perception. The diffusion index in this study ranges from 0 to 100 with a midpoint of 50 where less than 50 means contraction or less optimism and more than 50 means expansion or optimism. The overall business cost index stood at 35.8 over the last six months (March 2022 – August 2022) and is expected to reach 22.4 over the next six months (December 2022 – June 2023). Around 72 percent of business entities in this survey reported that the overall business cost will increase over the next six months. Martin Holtmann, country manager of the International Finance Corporation for Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, said: "The Business Confidence survey is the summary indicators of how the businesses feel. It is an individual measurement of the overall business condition of Bangladesh." "The BCS is a couple of early morning signs. We hope that these signs will help businesses make decisions. However, need to be careful about the status quo bias. We need to look at the trends. We need to give voice to the voiceless; in this case, they are CMSMEs, especially women entrepreneurs. It is well recognised that Bangladesh is doing good in every indicator." Sameer Sattar, president of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said an optimistic view emerges from the Business Confidence Survey 2022-23. "This survey found that our business community is showing confidence and resilience. One of the major recommendations the government needs to consider is that the cost of doing business needs to be minimised." "CMSMEs are suffering from multiple issues. Getting finance is one of the challenges for CMSMEs. We would recommend removing the medium from the CMSME category. One thought is that this survey can be more inclusive. More companies and sectors are needed to be included to make the survey more inclusive," he added.

Lauding the role of police in providing security, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said the law enforcement agency is now a symbol of dependability and confidence to the public. He made the remark while exchanging views with high-ranked police officers during a two-day ‘quarterly conference’ at Police Headquarters in the capital. Asaduzaman said “We are praised across the world for your (police) role in curbing terrorism risking your lives.” Read more: Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun adorned with IGP Rank Badge “Pirates and forest criminals surrendered to the police thanks to your operations,” he said. Referring to the ongoing political programme by the BNP across the country, he said they wouldn’t intervene in any political activities, but none will be spared if they try to create suffering for people in the name of political programme. Md Aminul Islam Khan, senior secretary of public security division under the home ministry, said presently work area of police and their challenges increased. Strategy and pattern of crime also got changed. He said the police have been performing their duty with success in maintaining law and order situation of the country. Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, inspector general of police (IGP), said people’s confidence in police increased due to their role in ensuring law and order with professionalism. Read more: Militancy under full control in Bangladesh: IGP He said police acquired an outstanding achievement in curbing militant and terrorism. CID’s head and additional IGP Mohammad Ali Mia, PBI’s head and also additional IGP Banaj Kumar Majumadr spoke at the programme among others.  

Clashes broke out Tuesday between Lebanese protesters and security forces near the parliament building in central Beirut, where the new Cabinet is scheduled to submit its policy statement ahead of a vote of confidence.