The new year can be stressful for many as it’s a time where people reflect on both the past and the present year. People will think about what they have and haven’t achieved, the positives and negatives and the good and the bad memories in the year just gone. However, it’s a time where people look forward. A time where people will change what they didn’t like and keep the things they liked in the past year to make the year ahead better.
Around this time of the year, the phrase; “new year, new me”, gets passed around but what does it actually mean? Does it mean that everything about someone has changed completely from one year to the next or it is just changing a few things about yourself.
It is also a time where people are making new year resolutions which have both positive and negative outcomes. New year resolutions are essentially goals where people have set them to become a better person and to work on themselves which links into the “new year, new me” idea.
Positives of New Year Resolutions
🏖 Increase well-being as they make you think about what we value most.
⛰ Gives us an opportunity to make change and improvement.
🗿 Helps us with scheduling and planning as you will know what you want.
Negatives of New Year Resolutions
🧩 New year resolutions aren’t always maintained so this can create self-loathing.
🎳 There is so much hype and pressure around new year resolutions.
🎧 People create resolutions around things they don’t like and look forward too.
How to create new year resolutions that are actually beneficial?
Start by thinking about what you actually want. For me, I want to become a better surfer. This doesn’t mean that I need to go surfing every week of the year. However, my goal is to go once a week within the summertime and in the winter time, I can focus on another goal that I have.
This leads nicely onto the next point which is, you don’t need to focus on every single goal every week of the year. Create a schedule so that you can spread out your goals throughout the year so that you work on different goals at different points in the year.
This creates less pressure on yourself as you aren’t doing too many different things. There is less disappointment if you don’t complete everything you want as well as allowing yourself to have more time spent on every goal you have.
Ask yourself these questions!
- How many goals do you want to have?
- Would you look forward to achieving these goals?
- Are your goals reasonable?
- Can they be achieved?
- How long will you be able to keep this goal going?
Overall, remember that new year resolutions are essentially goals and goals don’t have to be set at the beginning of a new year and carried on throughout the whole year. If you think of a new goal that you want to do in the middle of the year you can do that or if a goal that you have set at the beginning of the year isn’t working for you, it’s ok to let it go.