Day 6 New Year Check In

How's that resolution feeling?

Welcome to 2025, everyone! I hope you each had time to rest, connect with people you love, and soak in the shift from each day getting darker to each day getting lighter and brighter. The holidays can be challenging for many reasons, so, if that was the case for you, I hope you had support and experienced kindness in the past few weeks.

Of course, the influencers of the world like to take advantage of your restful, food fueled holiday time and bombard you with “new year, new me” style posts not even a full week later. Apparently, there are tons of things you should want to change about yourself and they (supposedly looking out for you and your wellbeing??) think you should do something to drastically change yourself and your life. Oof, it’s rough out here on the internet.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Let’s start with some honesty: for the past few years I haven’t personally set New Year resolutions or spend a lot of time reflecting on how I want to change or improve in the New Year. I’m not wholeheartedly against it, but the week before January is almost always spent out of town, with my family, and without a lot of structure or routine. Sitting down to reflect on things I would like to work on isn’t high on my agenda and the rest of December is a blur of buying presents, making plans, getting in all my favorite celebratory activities, and feeling the SAD start to set in as we enter the darkest months of the year. For me, I tend to start thinking about how I want my year to look in the first couple weeks of January - where do I want to go, how do I want to feel, what are the things that are bringing me down instead of lifting me up. From there, I can consider what I feel ready to try and how I want to support myself in doing that.

With that, do you want to hang out with me while I walk through one possible way to interact with setting a goal for yourself that is rooted in hope/self-kindness rather than shame? We’ll start from scratch, but if you’ve already set some intentions for the new year, maybe this is an opportunity to check in with how those goals are sitting with you today.

Step 1: Make a list

I’m always in favor of a moment of reflection, as I’m sure you are aware. Think back on your year. Can you remember things that stuck out to you as not feeling great or habits you found frustrating? Are there things you want to spend more time doing because they are enjoyable when you make the time? Write down some of those things. Be pretty specific if you can - no “exercise more” or “go to bed earlier” nonsense in this activity.

Here’s my list:

1. I’ve noticed a pattern of seasonal changes in the type of movement I am interested in. In the past this has led me to having large gaps of not moving as much as I like to when I am in a transition phase.

2. I’ve been burnt out with cooking and gravitate toward more convenient, easy to make meals more often than I personally find enjoyable.

3. I have the urge to look at my phone right when I wake up in the morning. I usually will check my emails and an app or two before I recognize that it’s not what I need in the moment.

4. I find myself struggling to use the natural breaks in my day to get outside, go for a walk, or stretch. I instead turn to my phone or my emails and spend more time in front of a screen than is fully necessary or helpful.

Try to make your list only behaviors that are changeable and specific. “Hating my body”, “exercise more”, or “go to bed earlier” are all things you may be ready to work on, but they aren’t a specific behavior to change. If we take “hating my body” as the experience you want to start shifting, think about the triggers you experience that increase your body dissatisfaction: doomscrolling models on Instagram, buying clothes that are too small, weighing yourself daily, etc. Any of those triggers are things that you could theoretically shift away from or make changes to in order to support yourself more effectively.

Step 2: Rank your list

Take diet culture, your parents’ opinions, your roommate, and that magazine article from 2001 out of it. What feels most pivotal to your experience of your own life on that list? What causes the most unhappiness, frustration, or pain? What do you feel internally motivated to change? What lights you up and makes you feel excited?

Here’s my ranking + thought process:

#4 - this feels achievable and helpful. I have a bit of time blindness, so if I don’t have more than enough time to do something it can feel like there’s not enough time. When I put things like yoga, walks, stretching, or self-care on my calendar during the day I actually do the things I want to do, and I tend to feel better at the end of the day.

#3 - I’ve gone through patterns in the past of interrupting this automatic behavior by getting out of bed more quickly or turning to a book for a few minutes. I can tell a difference in my mental health when I use my phone less often, so I feel motivated to find supports in minimizing my phone use.

#1 - Noticing this for myself has been interesting. It feels like yet another version of the intuitive nature of our bodies, and I can also notice where diet culture has impacted my view of movement - feeling like I need to be a person who does “X” (x= crossfit or yoga or running or …) in order to feel like an active person. Thinking about my year in seasons of activity feels freeing and motivating. It’s low on my list because I had already started shifting this way of thinking before the new year.

#2 - I feel okay with riding this wave for now. I know it won’t last forever, and I also know that forcing change before I am ready will do more to harm my relationship with cooking than to support my body. I know I am already doing well in supporting my nutrient needs for my body - even when I utilize convenient foods - so it doesn’t feel like something I currently need to focus on.

Step 3: Identify what you want this behavior to look like

We know what the behavior looks like right now. What would feel more supportive? What can look different? Do you want to shift the frequency or amount of time spent doing this behavior? Do you want to swap this behavior for another? Is this activity or behavior reserved only for specific times, or do you want to do it more often? Write a sentence or two about what the end result of your target looks like.

Example: I want to spend at least 20 minutes on a self-care related activity each day before 5pm. This could be a walk, yoga, stretching, a bath, sitting outside with my dogs, cleaning, or reading.

Step 4: How are you going to do that?

Making a plan to reach your goals is really the only way to make them happen. There’s a reason you aren’t already doing things the way you want to be - and it’s probably that it’s hard to change! We need supports and boundaries to transition out of our current habits and into a new way to interact with that experience. Consider the following:

• What are the barriers to changing this behavior?

• Why do you turn to this behavior? What does it do for you?

• On the other hand, why do you not turn to the behavior you would like to be doing? What feels difficult about choosing it?

• Are there people in your life who make this change difficult? What do you need from them to make this shift easier?

• How does this shift line up with your values? Can you hold boundaries with yourself that feel in alignment with your ethics and values systems?

• Are there steps you can take to move toward this behavior without expecting it to magically change overnight?

• What feels reasonable?

• How do you feel when you imagine things staying the way they are? How do you feel when you imagine meeting the goal you wrote down in step 3?

Once you have a good understanding of your barriers and needs, make yourself a plan for moving forward. It can be in steps, in can include boundaries, and it can look however you please! It’s for you and nobody else!

Here’s mine:

After I complete my charting/administrative work for the week I will take a look at my calendar for the next. In any break that is more than 20 minutes, I will make a plan for how to use that time. Here are my categories to put in those breaks:

• Emails/Admin time

• Movement

• Self-Care (reading, resting, hygiene)

• House Cleaning

At the end of the week, I’ll reflect on how I used that time and if I needed more of anything in particular during the week before scheduling out the next week. If I notice that I’m struggling with choosing to do these things I can add blocks to the apps on my phone, close out my email tabs for the allotted break time, leave my phone in the office and walk away, or leave my phone in another room while I’m working.

Step 5: Be a human

Even with a plan, with motivation, and with good intentions, making progress toward a goal can be really hard. It’s easy to imagine a smooth path forward when doing an activity like this from your couch (at least for me), but life can get in the way when we start taking this approach to real life. Give yourself opportunities to check in and adjust the plan or goal based on how you actually feel while working on it. You aren’t trapped in the black and white realm of “I have to do this 100% or not at all” - that type of thinking is actually really de-motivating. Flexible thinking is tough for many of us, and if you have an eating disorder it is likely even tougher. It can be freeing to experiment with flexibility in how you work toward this new way to experience life. Being kind, compassionate, and understanding with yourself is not “going easy” or letting yourself be “weak”. It’s (hopefully) how you would treat someone else if they were doing the same thing.

Happy New Year to you and welcome to 2025!