Congrats! You made it through the gift giving holidays and to the end of the year. The new year is right around the corner. This is usually a time that a lot of people reflect on what they accomplished in the past year. You also reflect on all of the highlights and happy moments you had over the past year. It is common for people to post on social media their top liked photos, the vacations they went on, their favorite movies or books, etc. This is a way to reminisce in all the things you enjoyed. The next thing that people turn their thoughts to are what they want their next year’s highlights to look like. Maybe they want to travel more, read more, or spend more time with family. There are so many things that people want to change in their life. It seems like a great time to reset and focus on accomplishing a new goal since you have a whole new year ahead of you. These hopes of change are called New Years Resolutions.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with psychotherapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, and couples with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, and life transitions.
A lot of people create new years resolutions, but they have a hard time sticking to them. One common new years resolution is to be healthier. This can come in many different smaller goals:
Eat healthier
Exercise more
Drink more water
Go to sleep earlier
Start seeing a mental health therapist
All of these goals will get you to feeling healthier physically and mentally. Maybe you are saying to yourself that you want to work on all of these goals and plan to start January 1st. It is great that you are determined to make these healthier changes in your life, but it is not realistic that the first day of the year will magically change your motivation level. What it can do is get you to reflect on the year ahead and what you would like to change. This is called the contemplation stage of change.
The stages of change represent a cycle. This cycle occurs in the following order:
Precontemplation
Contemplation
Determination
Action
Relapse
Maintenance
Back to preconemplation
Since this is a cycle, you can enter and exit this cycle at any point. Usually at this time of year, you enter at the contemplation or determination phase. Once New Years Day hits, you take action. The normal next step of change is relapse.
For example, if you are thinking of drinking more water in the new year then you will most likely start to track your water intake starting January 1st. Maybe you track your water intake for 2 weeks and you are doing great. And then you have a busy weekend in which you forget to track your water or find it too difficult to keep up with. This relapse phase is a normal part of progress. You will then have to get back on track to measuring your water intake again as soon as possible. This will then lead you to drink more water and you are back on track.
Making any change is a lot of work, but it is doable if you are realistic about it. During the end of the year, a lot of clients discussed with me what changes they would like to make in the new year. One resolution that has come up is to decrease screen time use. Whether this is for themselves, partners, or kids. Now that we are entering the 2020 decade, we have another factor of health to keep in mind. This includes how often we use our technology and immerse ourselves in our screens. Most phones, computers, and tablets will monitor how much you are using them. I think technology is needed in our daily lives and my suggestion is not for you to get rid of it completely. The goal is to use it as needed, but not to overdo it.
A realistic goal to feeling healthier is to…
…decrease the amount of screen time you use. This may look different for everyone. But something common that a lot of people do, including myself, is to look at their phone the first moment they wake up. Depending how much time you have between your alarm and actually getting out of bed, you are immediately sucked into your phone. Maybe you check the news, answer emails, scroll through social media, or start to plan out your day ahead. This could feel like a productive or positive way to wake up. But if your goal is to cut down on your daily screen time then this is probably the best way to start cutting it down.
Once you try to make this change of cutting out your screen time in the morning, try to notice how you feel once getting out of bed. Do you notice that your thoughts are different when you wake up versus when you stay in bed scrolling through social media? You may be surprised by how you feel. Making this minor change in your life will then lead you to be on your screen less and to be in tune with how you are really feeling throughout that day. It will make you much more present in the moment.
Whatever you choose as you new year resolution or goal for the new year, just remember that January 1st provides no magic to lasting progress. The real progress will happen if you can remind yourself that you’re only human and there will be relapses. As long as you start over as soon as possible, you will continue to make real and steady progress. Then at the end of 2020 you can reflect back on all of your highlights which will include the great change you made!
Is there a new years resolution that you completed in 2019 or in a past year? What helped you accomplish it? Drop it in the comments section below!
Courtney Glashow, LCSW
is a licensed psychotherapist practicing in Hoboken, New Jersey. She specializes in helping teens and adults with anxiety, depression, and life transitions through counseling. Courtney can help NY or NJ residents through telehealth (video/phone) therapy sessions as well.
