How many of you, either from emails to social media newsfeeds and online ads, have been inundated with New Year, new you messages, about being fitter, losing weight and making changes and so on? Mine have, along with loads of random emails too that I’ve started to unsubscribe from.
I just want to remind you that you are amazing as you are. Of course if you want to make changes then that is absolutely fine, but the key thing is you are doing so because you want to and you are doing it for you and not because someone else has told you too.
One of my nutrition colleagues and mentor made a great post about this very subject this week and I shared her post on my stories over on Instagram. Basically, what she was saying is that you don’t need to start the New Year by making big sweeping changes and have big intentions to have a fab 2023. However, if you do want to focus on your health and make changes, which can be a positive thing, the key thing to making changes is not to base these on someone else’s opinion and, to quote my colleague, not to base the changes on someone else’s idea of success.
If you want to make changes to your health, I always think it is a good idea to take a moment to reflect on what sort of change or changes you want to take and what benefits making those changes will give you. Also, think about what the improvements to your health will give you too. The changes are personal to you, and it is your own journey to make at the pace that is right for you. Don’t compare yourself to others.
On my stories I also did a quick poll about how many of you are making resolutions and I thought the results were quite interesting. 60% said you’re not making them, 20% said you're not sure and 20% said you’re doing something different.
For me personally I’ve not really made any. Last year my mental health was very up and down after having a very challenging year for a couple of different reasons (the problems with our house being a biggie) and these stressors brought up a lot of issues that I realised I hadn’t dealt with. They really came to surface, so I decided to get back in contact with my therapist and started working with her again. I really want to kick these issues up the arse and find peace of mind and calm my nervous system down.
The reason I’m telling you all of this is to show that you can make changes at any point of the year and you don’t have to set a time limit to achieve your goals. So don’t fret if you get to December and you haven’t reached all of your goals. You can continue them into the New Year, and this is exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to continue to work with my therapist and work on my personal growth and work towards my goals. I’m using this time to reflect back on what I have achieved so far and celebrate all the tiny steps and mini goals I’ve reached that will help me to get me to my ultimate one.
I hope this has resonated with you and helped you in creating self-awareness about all of the New Year, new you messages.