Posted on Sunday, 6th January 2019

The new year can elicit a real mixture of emotions. The excitement ahead for a fresh start, or pressure to achieve more this year.

If you’re thinking about, or have made some resolutions, take some time now to be clear with yourself about why you’re doing it. Is it for you or others? Are they things you’ve been wanting to do for a while. Will they make your life better?

If you do decide to set some goals, aim to make them positive in statement. E.g. instead of saying ‘I want to lose weight’, try; ‘I want to become healthier’. Or instead of; ‘I want to stop watching crap TV’, try: ‘I want to spend more of my free time doing activities that enrich my life’.

Above all else, try to ensure you would be wanting to make these changes if we were in the month of June, instead January. In other words, are these things you want all year round, or are you making New Year’s resolutions for the sake of it.
There can be so much pressure and expectation about Christmas and New Year. Yes they can represent very significant things for people, but, Christmas day is just another 24 hours, and New Years Eve is just another midnight passing. If The New Year makes you feel energised, inspired and motivated to make positive change, then great. But if not, do not be hard on yourself.

If you do decide to make some resolutions, I would suggest trying to make them SMART. Sometimes we can set ourselves a goal but it is too general and therefore difficult to know how to get started or how to achieve it. As a result, we can feel overwhelmed and not do anything. Making your goals SMART can help to avoid this. SMART is an acronym that I used to use a lot in the residential/care industry when helping clients set goals for themselves. The letters stand for:

S- specific. Be specific about what it is what want to achieve

M- measurable. How will you know if you’ve achieved the outcome or not?

A- achievable. Is this goal achievable for you this year? Setting yourself a goal that you know will be unlikely to be met is not very encouraging for yourself.

R- relevant. Is this a healthy and positive resolution for the year?

T- time. When exactly would you like to have achieved this by?

If you think you would benefit from talking to someone about the year ahead, why not get in touch?

Happy New Year everyone.