Whilst New Years Resolutions are a way of approaching change, the pressure a person can put on themselves at the beginning of a New Year to succeed, to fully commit and not fail, can turn what should be a happy, uplifting, and positive process into a stressful, overwhelming, and negative one.
These feelings can bread self-doubt and then contribute to people losing momentum and giving up.
It is important to recognise and consider that many people are tired in January following the Christmas Period and Festivities and in January many are still navigating the Winter Blues
Supporting your Mental Health this Winter - Cavity Dental Staff Agency
Dealing with the Winter Blues
Dealing with the Winter Blues could be just one of the reasons many New Years Resolutions fail within the first week or so.
Another reason could be you needed some additional support to help you achieve your goal but have found it difficult to find and receive the right level of support.
We can really help ourselves by considering and adopting a much kinder and more compassionate way to approach change in the New Year without feeling like everything rests on a New Years Resolution
Recognising in advance there could well be highs and lows as you embark on your journey of change and thinking ahead how you could perhaps deal with those moments when they arise, can give you a plan to work with ahead of time, which can help towards releasing the pressure and stress of worrying about failing or breaking a New Years Resolution in the moment itself.
Whilst we don’t want to live planning for every possible eventuality, understanding in advance ways how we can perhaps manage difficult and challenging moments, can just help us have the tools and mindset so we can being kind and compassionate to ourself and regulate our emotions in a healthier way when we encounter difficult moments
Many people worry about failure and giving up something they started, and this can be a huge barrier to even attempting something in the first place. The truth is failure and giving up are both ok and a very normal part of life for those who are striving to achieve something.
Failure if we are to even call it that, is one of the most human acts we can experience in life and without it we can very rarely learn and grow to our full potential.
With that in mind, we should ahead of the New Year look to move forward and embrace failure and not fear it and can anything ever truly be defined as failure, isn’t everything in life whether it works out or not all just a process of understanding, learning, adapting and moving on?
Approaching change in a more relaxed and balanced mindset and keeping in mind that being kind and compassionate to yourself and incorporating good self-care routines can really help support you in sustaining change in a happier and healthy way opposed to putting yourself under so much pressure at the start of the year.
The Mental health Foundation wrote an article in 2021 during the Pandemic which looked at:
“New Year's resolutions and how they can be fuelled by unhelpful self-criticism. ‘A festival of finding ways in which we are not enough’. So, instead we propose that you try setting a theme”.
You can explore this article below and read some additional content which helps reframe the traditional thought process of New Years Resolutions into a more healthy and compassionate regard taking away the pressure a New Years Resolution can sometimes bring. Support information is also available via our Cavity Support Resource Hub by following the link below
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/blogs/set-theme-yourself-new-year
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/blog/a-different-kind-of-new-year-s-resolution/
https://nationalcounsellingsociety.org/blog/posts/beating-new-years-resolution-pressure
Health & Wellbeing Resources Archive - Cavity Dental Staff Agency