New Year is my favorite holiday. Yeah, I like big turkey dinners and I thoroughly enjoy opening gifts but you hand me a notebook and a few pilot pens (colorful ink please) and tell me to plan a new year – I am on cloud nine. I love that feeling of new-ness and wide-open-ness and the feeling that this year might be the year it happens, even if I don’t know what it is. Plus it’s the perfect time to start working in my Self-Care Planner and writing down all of your self-care new year’s resolutions!
I’ve noticed that this year there’s been a bit of smack talking about New Year’s Resolutions and I wanted to share my own point of view. I don’t think that making resolutions sets you up to fail, I don’t think that they indicate you’re broken, I don’t think that they’re a waste of time, or that “successful” people don’t do them. You can call them intentions, goals, plans, resolutions, whatever you wish but they all have one point.
Making your life better.
And I am all about that. Personal growth is my thing. Let your resolutions come from a place that nourishes you. And if you fail, so what? Try again or realize that it’s not something you really wanted. No biggie. How you deal with failure is a huge indicator of self-love. If you beat yourself up and degrade yourself when you fail you have more problems than those 10lbs you didn’t lose.
There will be people who think resolutions are stupid or that they’re indicative of not liking yourself.
We can all do better in our lives, we can all improve and it doesn’t have to mean that right now we aren’t good enough. For example, I love my bed. The mattress is just right and I get such good sleep. But let’s say I add a super fuzzy blanket… it’s even better. Oh, and I spray my pillow with some lavender smelly goodness… heaven! But I still like it in its original state.
Wanting to improve upon yourself or your life – there’s nothing wrong with it, especially if it comes from a positive and loving mindset.
Here are some Self-Care New Year’s Resolutions you might want to incorporate into your year!
Make Your Social Media Nourishing
I don’t know about you, but there are times when I’m not-so-in-love with the internet. Take the last few years for example, I’ve seen so many things that just seem to bring out the worst in people. I’ve seen so much negativity and anger. A lot of things that made me feel icky inside. Each day I’d log onto Facebook and by the time I logged off I felt frustrated with humanity. (When they say never read the comments – they mean never read the comments!!!)
So I did a Facebook cleanse. I didn’t unfriend anyone, I simply controlled what I get to see. If a post pops up in your feed here’s what you do. Click on the little downward arrow in the upper right-hand corner of the post. This gives you three options. Hide Post (see fewer posts like this), Unfollow (stop seeing posts from this person but stay friends), and Snooze (stop seeing their posts for 30 days).
This allows you to filter out the things you don’t want to see and you have the bonus of not hurting anyone’s feelings (if that thought terrifies you like it does me).
You can also create custom lists like “Close Friends” – this has two benefits. It allows you to share things with only the people you want to and it gives you the option to see a special newsfeed comprised only of their updates.
You are not obligated to sift through social media things that make you feel icky.
Here’s my contribution to positive social media:
- My super colorful instagram page
- My completely free self-care group the Self-Care Circle
Create Nourishing Routines
One of the reasons that self-care New Year’s Resolutions fail is because it’s something that you force yourself to do. It’s not a gentle transition but an abrupt addition to your routine. You have a greater chance of success when you gently add those new goals to your life instead of forcing them to fit. It also cuts down on detoxing. Think of it this way. When you give up the bad-for-you-things, whether they are physical or emotional, your body and your mind rebels for a bit until it gets used to the new order of things.
If you are an avid coffee drinker give up coffee and see how you feel for the first few days. Stop smoking, or eating sugar, or start exercising after a long period of inactivity. Usually, it’s a huge pain in the ass and you feel worse before you feel better.
When you ease into it you cut down on those withdrawal feelings and start creating a routine to support change.
So start working on those routines. Gradually add your self-care into them until your life has room for all of those delicious goals.
This leads to the next one…
Add More _______.
(or less!) Instead of declaring that you’re going to exercise 4x a week just commit to exercising more than you do right now and gradually increase that throughout the year. We want to create sustainable change in our lives!
Also, add more of whatever makes you happy. That’s always one of my goals. More of something I love. More of something that makes me happy. Drink more tea, take more walks, write more pretty things, create more art, spend more time with friends, spend more time alone, read more books, dance more often, more more more.
Challenge yourself to do more of the things that you already do that make you happy. Your only real goal is to do just a bit more than you did last year, or last month, or yesterday.
Take those things that you already do, that you already love, and make more space for them.
Amp up the Self-Care.
If you haven’t yet picked up the Self-Care Planner do it! Now is the perfect time to start creating a self-care routine that makes you feel good. Self-care doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, despite what you may think. It’s the little things that add up to creating an amazing life.
Take a break when you need it instead of pushing through into exhaustion. Go to bed a bit earlier so you can get a more restful sleep. Read more nourishing things. Stay away from the people that drain you and fill you with negativity. Seek healing, really good, deep in your soul stuff.
What are your self-care New Year’s resolutions?
I made this cute little New Year’s Resolution Worksheet so that you can keep track of your goals and resolutions! Don’t forget to check out the January Daily Self-Care Worksheets while you’re at it!
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