Its been the longest and shortest year of most of our lives. Yet here we are ready to start thinking of our New Year’s resolutions for 2021. Since 2020 has been challenging for many (ok, all) of us, resolutions this year present an opportunity to take stock of our mental and physical health and make meaningful resolutions to improve and excel despite the pandemic.
Keep reading for some of my tips for making resolutions you’ll want to work toward and ones that will help you to move forward from 2020 and the pandemic for a healthier and happier 2021.
Think about the “why” for strong resolutions that will motivate progress
A good resolution is one that is meaningful enough to you to make the effort you’ll need to put in worth it. Many times we set goals that sound nice but our “why” isn’t compelling enough to make all of the hard work enough of an enticement to actually make it happen.
Let your values guide you to improve your life despite the pandemic
A great way to determine your goal is to think about the top three values you hold dear and use those to guide you. That taps into what is most important to your legacy as a person and defines the way you want to live your life. These will be different for everyone too but may include: physical health, quality time with loved ones, excelling at your career or increasing human connection.
Don’t limit yourself to the narrow definition of a resolution
A resolution doesn’t have to be huge, it can be smaller resolutions leading to a larger goal. Setting small micro goals trains our brain that we can indeed make progress and gradually working our way up can help guard against a small setback becoming a hard stop. Life can be overwhelming enough right now so we can incorporate small changes that still make a big impact.
Focus your resolutions on improving parts of your life that have been impacted by the pandemic
The biggest resolutions I have been hearing about in my practice are: working on managing anxiety and depression symptoms stemming from the pandemic, learning to be more appreciative of what we do have and improving physical and mental health. Take note of how the pandemic has negatively impacted you and set resolutions that help you work toward a better you in 2021 despite the fact that the Pandemic is still at large.
Give yourself room to be human, but hold yourself accountable
It’s been a hard year and all of us have slipped on some of our resolutions and healthy practices as a way of coping. Oftentimes we can have an all or nothing mentality where if we have a bad day or eat something that wasn’t on our diet we decide to scrap our entire goal. Avoid this by giving yourself room to have an off day while still staying accountable to the larger, overall resolution.
A great way to help with commitment and accountability is to verbalize your goal to another person. Having someone to cheer you on and hold you accountable outside of yourself can be a huge boost.
Leave a Reply