For many, the beginning of a new year is a time-honored tradition of fresh starts and new resolutions to change behaviors. Although I typically create a formal New Year’s plan in my professional life, I am much less formal when it comes to plans or resolutions as it relates to my personal life. For the past two years in particular, my version of a New Year’s resolution has been spending time on Jan. 1 meditating and journaling on how I can be more loving and peaceful.
This year, I decided to be more formal and made three “WELL-thy New Year” resolutions. My resolutions were to do at least one of the following every day: 1) express gratitude for someone or something; 2) release something or someone; and 3) do something for my self-care.
Each of these resolutions is a known wellness practice which I have personally put into practice and designed professional wellness programs around in the past, albeit for shorter periods of time (usually a month). My own previous experience with regular, intentional practice of these behaviors resulted in a healthier (and dare I say happier?) perspective. I was excited to practice these for a whole year! Practice makes perfect and, I have found that practicing these particular activities can make you healthier in unexpected ways. Let me explain:
First, an “attitude of gratitude” inherently promotes a positive, glass half-full perspective. I have personally used gratitude as a positive option to intentionally distract and shift my attention from depressive, anxious or negative thoughts. The more I practice expressing gratitude, the more aware I am of those aspects of my life for which I am grateful, and the more comfortable I am expressing gratitude in new ways. Expressing gratitude daily helps me cultivate the habit of being appreciative and expressing appreciation.
Second, every March for the last two years, I have done what I call my #SpringRelease challenge. For every day of the month, I encourage my followers on social media to join me in releasing something that is no longer contributing positively to their lives. In my own practicing of this process of letting go, my perspective has changed on attachments, to both material things and people. The more I practice releasing, the more I am able to literally and figuratively declutter my life and the more comfortable I am with the concept of letting go. Attaching success to letting go has enabled a healthier perspective to my relationships to people and things. I am able to more clearly distinguish what needs to be released in order to make more space for the positive and useful I want in my life.
Lastly, at various points over the last two years, I have set aside periods of time to intentionally focus on self-care. As you can probably guess, the more I practice self-care, the more it becomes a habit. As examples, my periods of intentional self-care have led to the development of my current habits of meditation (daily), self-massage with the foam roller (regularly during the week), journaling (intermittently) and baths (monthly).
Having done each of these activities and reaping the benefits in the past made me excited about approaching them this year in a new way. What is great about these resolutions is that they are not only beneficial but I also actively look forward to them. They are proof positive that New Year’s resolutions can be effective if they are easy, fun, flexible and as immediately gratifying as possible.
