New year, and radically: no need for a new me! On New Years Eve, you might have been part of conversations about resolutions for the upcoming year. It’s quite a habit for many to reflect on the past year and announce their new ideas for the next one ahead. While it can be a nice conversation starter or an exciting project for someone, it’s also good to have a light-hearted approach to making resolutions. Often very sudden lifestyle changes can be hard to maintain, especially if there aren’t any immediate rewards to gain.
Besides, our environment can oftentimes seem obsessed with demanding constant progress and development, even on an individual level. This can sometimes manifest itself in people’s obsessive need for constant change to do better in their lives. Of course, this is not always a bad thing, but it’s healthy to know that you don’t have to be reinventing yourself every year or more. However, checking realistically some of your routines, and whether you would like to improve some of them, can be a beneficial habit.
Sitting down to think about what goals you would see as important to you, and giving yourself time to reach towards them is another good approach. Making a realistic plan to achieve your goals and accepting setbacks that might come your way builds your confidence in working towards what’s meaningful for you. Usually, meaningful actions towards better well-being don’t have to be life-altering. Sometimes just noticing your responses to different situations or environments can be a big personal step.
If you feel bad about not achieving the resolutions you made for the year, there shouldn’t be a reason for you to be hard on yourself about it. Maybe the goal wasn’t as desirable for you as you thought, maybe the progress towards it just takes longer or maybe the goal turned out not to be the right for you. It is okay to re-assess and decide on your life goals or actions on other days than just on New Year’s. While self-reflection can be a beautiful and helpful thing in many ways, remember that the current version of you is already enough. Do only the resolutions and actions that serve your well-being the right way and enjoy the year with curiosity.