Remember the promises and resolutions we made? It’s been a month since the New Year’s celebration wound down, and in the life of a resolution, a month can be a very long time.
I always look at the turn of the January calendar as an opportunity to re-examine the intention set for the year ahead. Taking an open, positive attitude toward the potential the year still holds, try to assess your resolutions honestly. Here are some ideas on what to do if you’re rocking the resolutions, or if you feel like you’ve lost your footing a bit. Which category do you belong in?
“My Resolutions Are Going Great!”
If you are showing yourself to be a person of your word, there was never a better moment to practice healthy, uplifting self-congratulation techniques. Celebrate your accomplishments so far—and fuel your motivation to keep it up with self-care that is a propos to your achievement. If you’ve exercised three days a week for the whole month, maybe pick up a new workout top to freshen your resolve. If you have been successfully cutting down on sugar, seek out a healthy new dessert recipe to try this weekend. Or, if you are meeting a personal goal—more confidence at work, deeper conversations with family and friends, smarter spending and saving habits, more and better sleep—simply look yourself in the mirror, take several deep breaths and lovingly tell yourself, “You’re doing great. Keep it up!”
“My Resolutions Are Going Less-Than-Great.”
I am a firm believer that it’s never too late to make a resolution reset. If you struggle daily to meet your goal, it might be time to ask yourself—without judgment, please!—whether you were right to make that resolution in the first place. There is no shame at all in either adjusting a resolution (would exercising twice weekly be more accessible to you than three times?) or setting it aside altogether. It can also be helpful to dig deeper than the “doing” part of a resolution, into the reason you set your sights on it in the first place. If eating more vegetables isn’t working for you, for example, maybe you could step back to the larger goal of eating more healthy foods and approach that from a different perspective like fewer processed foods or more lean proteins like fish and tofu.
Regardless of where you are with your resolutions, remember that the year is young! This year could be your most positive one yet.
