Hello! My name is Athina, I am a Youth Intern at Communities Building Youth Futures (CBYF). I was raised in Greece and immigrated to Canada to attend college and found myself permanently settling and making Woodstock my new home.
With a new year, I always say to myself “this year I will put my life together, fix all my problems, get fit, wake up early, be productive, eat healthy every day" … and so on). But the problem is that I tend to either forget about my New Year’s resolutions very soon after I make them as they are broad and general desires or try very hard to make a change until it is too exhausting to continue.
I also think I am not the only one falling into that trap, and then feel like I have failed because the resolutions did not go as planned, and then…wait for the next year to come and see, maybe this time will be different. I am here to give you some small advice that might help you set goals this year and most importantly maintain them!
First, you could use the beginning of the New Year to set and work on your goals but that is not necessary, you can start at any time that you feel you can have the mental and physical capacity, or you can spread your yearly goals throughout the new year and decide how you would like to start based on your terms.
What really worked for me is to take it as slow as possible, especially when it's about building or radically changing a habit. Take your time, changes don't happen in a week not even in a month sometimes. The best example I can give is the gym or trying to get fit and exercise. Many of my friends, including me, tried to exercise everyday and eagerly waited to see how fit we got after just a few weeks. But it might be better if you incorporate exercise into your routine by slowly adding activities that you enjoy and increase them with time, that way you build a long term, stress free, enjoyable, and healthy habit!
Last, we tend to overestimate our available time and energy when thinking and planning our goals. But when the time comes to practice all the plans we have set for each day might be exhausting and easy to skip on many activities just to get the rest we need.
So this year take small steps towards your goals, plan your time accordingly, be specific and clear with what you want to achieve and most importantly if you can vision it you can do it!