As the New Year begins, many people are looking to set resolutions and goals for themselves. For some, this may mean focusing on their health and wellness. Although it can be difficult to stay motivated throughout the year, there are a few tips that can help make it easier. Staying on top of your goals in any regard is all about staying organized and being realistic in what you set out to do. The easiest way to fall off the train is to set your goals far too high and feel like you’ve failed as a result. Focusing on wellness is an ongoing practice, and that means building off of smaller habits to reach longer term development goals. In this blog post, we will outline some of the best ways to focus on your health in 2022. Stay tuned for more information!
Make a Clear Outline of Your Goals for the Year
Establishing wellness goals for the year can be a great way to get started with your goals realistically. Give yourself the entire year to achieve something that you feel is doable. If you’re aiming to change your diet to be mostly vegan by the end of the year, then set milestones that include weekly menus so you can stay on track and make sure that you’re getting enough food along the way. If your goal is to develop an exercise routine, take small steps by starting with one activity a week and then edging up to two or three as the year goes on. This gives you flexibility to reach smaller goals and track your progress along the way
Who Has the Time?
This is the biggest issue when people start to adopt wellness routines. Often it can feel like we’re far too busy to take on any other routine habits. However, doing something new is always going to require that we carve out time for it and it’s all about setting a schedule for yourself that is realistic and works for you. How to make time for wellness in your busy schedule will look different for everyone, but it all comes down to carving out small amounts of time that you dedicate only to yourself. Remember, wellness and self care are one in the same and it may help to think of it in those terms. You’re making time for yourself to develop healthy habits, and that means you can give yourself permission to turn your phone off and get to your correspondence at a different time during the day.
How to Stay Motivated
Staying motivated toward an exercise or wellness routine can be just as tricky as getting started in the first place. The key is a similar tune to the one sung above, take small steps! At first, maybe give yourself a couple of hours a week to dedicate toward self care. This could mean preparing a home cooked meal, walking around the neighborhood or getting some fresh air and reading a book in a peaceful place. Whatever it is, set 20 minutes aside a week to engage in your chosen activity. This will help it feel like something you can grasp rather than trying to carve out hours of time every day. Small steps are things you can build on.
Track Your Progress
Keep close track of your progress as the year goes on! There are many ways to do this, from journals to more advanced and comprehensive at home tools. Vessel Health provides extremely innovative at-home testing strips that give a comprehensive breakdown of what’s going on in your body, illuminating potential vitamin and nutrient deficiencies that you might not have been aware of prior to taking their test. Having adequate tools and technologies to help you both track your progress and understand it is an essential part of paying closer attention to your wellness in 2022.
Find Something that Works For You
Let’s be real, there are so many exercise and wellness ‘experts’ out there giving their two cents on how you can clean up your body and feel better today. The reality is that regular exercise, healthy diet and self awareness are the key factors to feeling both confident and empowered in your wellness routine. This means that you should try lots of different things and keep the things that work for you! Don’t get bogged down by one person’s direction, use what works for you and lose the rest! Setting up a wellness routine that works for you will help you stay motivated and excited to continue your progress throughout the year rather than falling off someone else’s sworn-by routine. These are just pieces of advice that you should always consider whether or not it would work for you.
When You Reach a Milestone, Celebrate!
Honor your success by celebrating them throughout the year! Celebrating your accomplishments along the way can help you feel like the hard work was worth the effort to stick to it. Do something special for yourself every time to reach a new milestone to keep yourself in the game and excited for the next milestone you’ll reach! Self care wellness is all about not just taking care of your body but being nice to yourself! Make sure you motivate yourself by giving yourself the incentive to keep moving forward!
Setting realistic expectations for yourself and setting attainable goals is a good start to making wellness a priority. Start by taking time to identify what your body needs so you can prioritize self care activities throughout the day or week, such as stretching after sitting at work all day, getting enough sleep each night, and drinking water during the day instead of coffee. Making these small changes will help you feel better about yourself which can lead to more energy and productivity in other parts of your life that may be lacking from neglecting those basic human needs. So why not make this a New Year’s resolution? Take some time today to think about how much self-care matters to you!
