Every beginning of the year many of us spend time reflecting on the many goals we want to achieve, from losing weight, planning that perfect vacation, making time to try to meet new people or explore new activities to trying to build a good life for ourselves. We go on writing down new resolutions, taping sticky notes on our fridge or bathroom mirror to remind us of the little things we want to incorporate in the New Year. 

With so much excitement and enthusiasm about the future, we quite often forget about the daily grinds that life plan to test us with, and just to end up throwing off our plans. 

Because when we are setting up these goals and making promises to ourselves, we often forget that life will happens and as always, we are not able to achieve many of these goals. Sometimes, for some of us, this can lead to frustration and feeling like we have let ourselves down again, and can end up internalizing these feelings, and inadvertently affecting how we feel about ourselves. 

Perhaps, is it time to reframe how we view New Year resolutions?

One possible way to view new year resolution is as a time to stop and reflect on what we have accomplished so far and use it as a building block to improve this year. Instead of focusing on goals we have not achieved or setting up goals that are unachievable, we can look at where we are right now versus where we were last year. Maybe this can even be a form of practicing Gratitude, which always bring us to a positive state of mind.

Are we moving forward in our life in some way? For instance, did you work a part time job last year and gained new skills or saved for raining days, even though you did not get that new car you wanted. This is still a form of growing even it may seem small; it is an action you took to improve something for yourself.

Another way is to choose to take intentional effort toward our own growth by trying to do better than we did last year. Ask yourself: Are you growing? Learning? Improving in some way? If so, that may sound small, but if done gradually can make impact on the long run.

Choose to take intentional actions on the daily, weekly or monthly basis to get out of our comfort zone.The reality is our comfort zone maybe preventing us from achieving many of our goals we set for ourselves because they may be too big or overwhelming, but if we focus on taking small and consistent actions in things we do and engage in, we can find that achieving our goals maybe doable than we first thought. An example of intentional effort is choosing to go to that meetup group to meet new people, sign up for a volunteer role to help others even when you may not feel like it. By doing this, you are pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and choosing to do better than you would have preferred to. 

Find something you are passionate about and engage in it to help improve your well-being. Nurturing our passions help us build healthy sense of self, while bringing us joy and happiness, and for new beginning, looking forward to a passionate project or activity can be rewarding and help build self-esteem. 

Choosing to build small actions into habits that you can sustain in the long run. Then slowly, these can help us start choosing the things that challenges us instead of the easy one, thus helping improve your sense of self. 

Eventually, this helps us:

-Avoid setting ourselves up for failures by choosing intentional efforts rather than strict actions or promises.

– Choose growth instead of comfort 

– Keep learning 

– Staying healthy 

– Maintain a healthy mental state and build a growth mindset 

When it comes to reframing new year resolution, the goal is to create actions into habits that we can sustain overtime and that can become part of who we are. Instead of focusing on making promises to ourselves that we cannot keep, we create consistent habits that can bring results overtime without making it difficult on ourselves.

Slowly building and incorporating small goals into habits and routines maybe the key to successfully achieving our new year goals.