New Year Thoughts

The New Year is upon us. What a beautiful time to reflect, dream and put into place actions to improve ours and others lives.

The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions began during the reign of Caesar. At the time, New Year’s resolutions were of a moral nature, such as being kind to others. These days, these promises are much more about self-improvement, improving lifestyle and hitting some pretty major personal goals. 

“The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.”

Melody Beattie

While there is nothing better than a good goal-setting session to motivate us towards better lives, a huge number of people have found that the specific resolutions made at New Years often don’t last more than a few weeks or in many cases, get almost immediately forgotten. In fact, studies have shown that around 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail.

If we approach our resolutions in the wrong way it can take a real toll on our mental health. Especially if a goal is too vague or hard to reach. One study found that general, non-specific goals caused depressed people to feel more depressed. It can also cause anxiety as self-confidence is decreased as shown in this study.

The good news is that we can make these beautiful commitments to ourselves more achievable and in a much healthier way if we more consciously look at how we approach them. The new year is a fantastic time to reevaluate and change up what we need to so let’s use this opportunity wisely. 

Here are my tips on how to make sure we are looking after our mental health this season if we do choose to make New Year’s resolutions

Be true to yourself

Often times, we set goals because we think that’s what we’re supposed to do. When motivation comes from outside of us, we are less likely to succeed. Instead, let’s be honest with ourselves and figure out what is important and valuable – setting a goal that comes from within.

Don’t over-do it

Loading ourselves up with multiple goals can make us overwhelmed – leading to anxiety and if one goal isn’t met, can also lead to us giving up on the rest. We could try to go easier on ourselves and pick one or two goals to concentrate on and give them the attention they need.

Set achievable goals

We’ve all done it. Expected far too much of ourselves and made anything other than complete perfection be a failure. That feeling you get from achieving any goal, small or big, feels incredible. We are far better to be realistic and actually succeed right? 

Tell others about our goals?

I’ve read differing opinions on sharing goals. Some believe that telling people what you want to achieve creates a premature sense of completeness. While you feel a sense of pride in letting people know what you intend to do, that pride doesn’t motivate you and can in fact hurt you later on. Others suggest that being vocal about our resolutions to friends and family can mean more support and respect of any boundaries that have been put in place.

Prime our environment for success

If certain aspects of our environment are obstacles in the way of progress, let’s change them. If a goal is to quit hitting snooze on the alarm clock and get up earlier, we could move the alarm so we have to get out of bed to turn it off. Or if your goal is to cut back your amount of phone time, we could set an alarm to remind us every day to put our phones away for the night. Making small changes can really improve our chances of success.

Chart progress

Once we have identified our goals and have a specific plan set for how to achieve it, tracking our progress can really help us keep our eyes on the prize. How good does it feel to check steps off on a list – even that in itself is rewarding? Having a visual representation of what you have achieved, for example marking on a calendar each day a step is completed, can be extremely helpful. Us humans are visual creatures and the consistency can be aesthetically pleasing to the eye and keep us motivated.

Celebrate success 

This article has a great section on celebrating small wins. It explains how the key is realising that big goals won’t be achieved overnight or even over the next year. We can be tempted to focus solely on the end result and forget to recognize the smaller goals it can take to get there. 

Be compassionate about slip-ups

We’ve all been there. We’ve set a goal for change and pretty quickly we’ve slipped up. And when this happened that little voice said “Well that’s it, I couldn’t even make it a week, I obviously can’t do this. I give up.” Well, psychologists have said that relapsing when you’re trying to achieve a goal is simply part of the process and an important one at that. It can be a chance to look at what in your environment needs to change to set you on the best track. Showing ourselves compassion, seeing mistakes as a learning experience and trying again is a true act of self-love. 

Whatever your choices are about resolutions or goals for the new year, try and remember the best way to succeed is always to be kind to yourself and treat yourself with the same love you would extend to anyone else you care about.

Happy New Year!

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.”

Neil Gaiman