How to Incorporate Wellness into New Year’s Resolutions

Wow! We are almost at the start of another year. It feels like just yesterday we were creating our goals and thinking about our intentions for 2021. In this blog, we will look ahead to 2022 wellness new year’s resolutions. But first, let’s take a moment to slow down and look back at this holiday season.

Speaking from my experience, the holiday season is a time where my routines, boundaries, intentions, and goals are the most challenged. Yet here we are, post-holidays, and I am still feeling pressure as New Year’s Day begins to creep up. I am hearing phrases like “new year, new me” or “time to get back on track.” New Year’s resolutions can feel harsh and pressure-filled. There can be an undertone that we have to change or be better. This pressure may be inspiring for the month of January. However, it can also lead to a fear of failure or feeling overwhelmed by unrealistic goals. We may also struggle with a lack of inspiration, or feeling perfectionism, shame, or inauthenticity. These are many of the reasons why New Year’s resolutions tend to fall off.

So, as we go into 2022, let’s do something different. Let’s reframe the idea of New Year’s resolutions. We often view resolutions as goals that society tells us to write. Instead, let’s take it as an opportunity to check in with ourselves and evaluate our overall well being. In this blog post, we will be discussing how to incorporate realistic wellness intentions into your New Year’s resolutions. As a result, you may have more compassionate and mindful resolutions for yourself. 

Self-reflection 

Taking the time to self-reflect at the turn of the year has its benefits. It is a great way to connect with your authentic self. It can also help you to assess what has and has not been working for you this past year. When I take time to self-reflect, I often think about my goals within the 8 dimensions of wellness. This is a great framework to assist you in looking at your lifestyle holistically. We can use the 8 dimensions of wellness to explore what wellness realms are we focused on and what realms need improvement. These questions are a great guide to help you reflect on each wellness realm. 

Watch a webinar on the 8 dimensions of wellness

If you use these questions, here are a few suggestions. First, find a space that feels safe to reflect in. Make sure to minimize any distractions. Then, take a few moments to connect with yourself compassionately. You can do this by taking deep breaths, checking in with your emotions, and your self-talk.

Using self-reflection to create intentions

After you take time to self-reflect, we next want to create wellness ideas and intentions for the new year. The key here is to notice what wellness habits are already working for you. Let’s say your wellness intention is to explore other paths within your career. (This is the realm of occupational wellness.) Let’s also say your social wellness was strong in 2021. In this case, you can take a look at your wellness routines and habits in the social realm. This can give you ideas on how to improve your networking skills.

Perhaps instead your spiritual wellness was strong. In this case, you may create space to connect with your authentic self around issues related to work. In doing so, you can evaluate what is and isn’t working for you in your current career trajectory. Each realm of wellness can provide hints on what you are already doing. You can use these hints to maximize your overall well being headed into the new year. 

Creating habits and routines

Now that we have our New Year’s wellness intentions, we can envision how to put them into action. We first want to take our intention that we created above and outline practices on how to get there. Take a moment to vision yourself fulfilling that intention. What would it look like? What would you be doing? How would you be feeling? Use this vision to outline potential options on how you could get there. 

Here is an example: 

Intention: Embrace my emotions (emotional/mental wellness realm)

Potential Practices:

1. Create space for daily mindful quiet time
2. Explore what emotions feel like in my body
3. Attend therapy weekly
4. Express emotions through journaling 
5. Share my emotions with a safe person

You want to take those potential practices and see what feels right for you. There are tons of practices that could assist you in fulfilling your wellness intentions. Considering this, give yourself permission to explore them, even if it is not what you thought would work in the beginning of this journey. Once you have found a routine that works for you, stay consistent. This is where routines and intentions turn into habits. Habits are continuous intentional actions that occur daily. They usually begin as a routine that then becomes a daily automatic behavior. Once it becomes a habit, your brain uses less mental energy to power you to do the action. This in turn frees up energy to focus on other tasks or goals. So how do we stay consistent? 

Let go of comparison

Almost always the game of comparison can lead us into a dark tunnel. We may compare ourselves to friends, family, and people we follow on social media. This only further drives us away from ourselves and, in turn, away from our goals. Wellness goals and routines are highly personalized. What works for others may not work for you and vice versa. Instead of comparing yourself to others, in 2022 let’s collectively anchor into self-connection. As you connect with yourself, you may find that you also foster a deeper connection with others without the need to compare.

Mindfulness and affirmations 

A core piece of keeping your New Year’s wellness resolutions consistent is by practicing the act of mindfulness. Throughout the year we want to be present in our body. This helps us to make active choices that feel right for us in each given moment. In addition to presence, a core practice of mindfulness is remaining open to all experiences that may come your way. By staying present, curious, and non-judgmental, we can slow down our bodies. This allows us to respond rather than react to different triggering situations. Responding rather than reacting can assist us in making mindful choices that correlate with our New Year’s wellness resolutions. 

A great way to remind yourself to slow down and practice mindfulness is by using affirmations. An affirmation such as “I am ok just as I am” or “I am choosing to be my best self” is a great way to slow down and look inwards. When we take a moment to reconnect with ourselves, we can determine what is truly important to us. Is it important to stay firm in our wellness intentions by choosing to put up boundaries? Or does it feel right to re-evaluate your intentions? Regardless of the answer, using as affirmation when you are faced with a challenge can anchor you back into self-connectedness. This can help lead you to the answer that is best for you in that moment. 

Self-compassion 

We are not shooting for perfectionism with New Year’s wellness resolutions. We will have slip ups and that is ok. In the moments where we do slip up we have two choices. The first is to meet ourselves with self-judgment and label ourselves as a failure. The second option is to take this moment as a learning opportunity while meeting ourselves with self-kindness, care, and understanding. Self-criticism is not only mean, but furthers us from our New Year’s wellness goals. When we meet our stumbles with self-compassion, it boosts our motivation to reach our full potential. We are more likely to come back to our authentic self and our wellness intentions when we are forgiving. 

Read more about healthy goal setting

I want to leave you with a reminder that it is always ok to go back and readjust your New Year’s wellness resolutions when they do not serve you in a particular moment. What worked for you in January may not serve you in the middle or the end of 2022. That is ok! In fact, I urge you to continually check in with your present self and your New Year’s wellness intentions daily. Each day brings new emotions, opportunities, obstacles, and growth. Therefore, it would be unrealistic to think that the same practices you were doing in the beginning of 2022 will still fit by the end, even if your overall intention remains the same. I hope after reading this blog post you take some quiet time to reflect and share your New Years wellness resolution with us! 

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What are your 2022 New Year’s wellness goals and intentions? Join the conversation in the comments below!