New year, new Me! If you’re eager to pursue a goal or implement some changes, at the start of a fresh new year and with a clean slate, it can feel like the perfect time to do it. Setting goals and embracing challenges are vital aspects of personal growth. Accomplishing what you set out to brings satisfaction and also boosts self-confidence. It shows us the potential of what we can achieve! Amy Cottrell, Registered Nutritionist mBANT, rCNHC and Mesi Balog, Workplace Wellness Consultant & Founder of Treat Your Staff share their tips for a better year ahead with smart and sustainable wellness goals..

Mindful tips for changing your diet

When embarking on something new, particularly a change in your lifestyle or nutrition, it’s advisable to start with small, gradual steps. Attempts to transform your entire diet overnight or suddenly trying to follow a rigorous gym routine are likely to hit a brick wall sooner rather than later. Attempts like these are likely to result in a loss of interest, motivation struggles, and ultimately you giving up entirely.

Instead, consider focusing on one aspect at a time. Start with a modest change, like incorporating an additional serving of vegetables per day to your daily diet. Once that becomes a manageable routine, you can introduce another adjustment, such as reducing your daily coffee intake from three cups to two.

What’s your sustainable wellness goal?

Understanding the underlying motivation behind your goal is crucial, for example, knowing why you want to exercise three times a week provides a foundation that extends beyond initial motivation, ensuring long-term commitment. Whether it’s for enhanced confidence (in body or mind) or to sustain the energy required to keep up with your children, identifying your “why” acts as a powerful anchor during moments of feeling unmotivated.

In the realm of health-related goals, employing the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely—is paramount. For instance, transforming a vague goal like ‘I want to eat healthier and reduce my sugar intake’ into a SMART goal might look like this: ‘From February, I will increase my daily vegetable intake by one handful a day and focus on adding a source of protein to every meal and snack for at least 5 days a week.’ Keeping track of these changes using a habit tracker (Notion has a good one) or simply writing them down in a diary or notebook allows for reflection at the end of the month and enables adjustments for continued progress.

Set mental health goals too

Exactly the same principles apply when it comes to working on improving our mental health – particularly when we find ourselves in a place we are not happy with and decide that it’s time to make some changes. Sometimes small things can trigger big changes other times a bigger life-event can push us to dig deeper into our own minds and work on improving our mental fitness. In any case, once we make a conscious decision to change something, it’s important to start gradually; otherwise we can easily get overwhelmed by trying to do too much at once-which is simply not maintainable. Step by step, starting with just 5 minutes of mindfulness each morning, we can guide our thoughts and fill our minds with positivity and gratitude in order to set the tone for the day. Training our mental muscles should be just as important as keeping our body fit and healthy.

Remember, you don’t need to change everything in in January or reinvent yourself. If you choose to do so, work towards a goal by implementing small changes consistently, and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect!