Setting Healthy Expectations & Resolutions to Avoid Depression & Anxiety

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.” – Tony Robbins

For many of us, the new year can be filled with hope and expectations for new beginnings and a fresh start. While it’s a great time to set goals and resolutions, many of us set expectations that feel exciting at first but are often unrealistic in the long-term. Health goals, diet goals, exercise goals, hopes for romance, and financial aspirations are all common themes of New Year’s resolutions, but even resolutions made with the best of intentions can become a source of pressure and stress.

More often than not, New Year’s resolutions are abandoned within a month or two, leaving well-meaning goal-setters feeling depressed, anxious, and guilty for ‘failing’ to meet their resolutions. However, with a little planning and guidance, every one of us is capable of setting healthy expectations and resolutions for the new year to avoid depression and anxiety, improve our health and mental wellness, and make the most out of the new year to come.

Set Well Defined Goals

No matter what your goal is, one of the biggest reasons resolutions fail is because they are not specific enough. Setting a resolution to “exercise more” is hard to meet because “more” is not well defined. Spend some time determining what exactly the goal is that you are aiming for, setting a flexible timeline, and breaking down your goals into concrete, digestible steps.

If you want to exercise more, consider signing up for a 3K or 5K race, and plan how often and how much you will need to run each week to prepare for race day. If you want to “read more,” try signing up for a local book club (many are also available on Zoom today) that discusses one book per month. If you want to “be less stressed,” consider joining a weekly meditation or yoga class, plan to meet with a therapist, or simply resolve to take two or three 15-minute breaks during your work day.

“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” – Jack Kornfield

If you are trying to break an old habit, try resolving to create a new habit to replace it. For example, instead of resolving to “stop biting my nails,” try setting a resolution to “give myself regular manicures.” Or, instead of resolving to “quit eating junk food,” try resolving to plan healthy meals each weekend and go grocery shopping.

Take Time to Achieve Your Resolution

Taking steps to make your resolution specific and to set concrete milestones towards reaching your goal is vital to your success. However, when you set a timeline to achieve your goal, make sure to be flexible. Don’t beat yourself up or feel guilty if you miss a workout, eat junk food one night, or have negative or self-critical thoughts. It took time to get yourself to the point where you set this resolution for yourself, and it will take time to achieve your resolution. Be patient. Celebrate milestones you reach towards achieving your goal, and if you ‘mess up’ don’t give up – instead resolve to do better tomorrow.

Frame Goals in a Positive Way

Try to set goals that are positive but realistic. If you have never practiced meditation or gone for a run, it is unrealistic to resolve to meditate for one hour per day or run a marathon in three months’ time. If you have chronic depression or anxiety, it will take time to recover and you may want to seek professional help. We are much more likely to achieve our goals if they are manageable and realistic. It is important for us to dream and to dream big, but we will be able to stick to our resolutions if we feel that we have a reasonable plans in place to achieve them.??

Another key to a successful New Year’s resolution is to frame your goal in a positive way. Instead of setting goals to “lose weight” or “be less stressed,” try setting a goal to “eat healthier foods that make me feel good,” or “practice self care that relaxes me.” How you talk to yourself has a major impact on how you feel and on your mental wellness. Be kind to yourself. Framing your resolution in a positive way will make you feel more excited and inspired when you work towards reaching your goal.

Most importantly, make your resolution about YOU, not about your friends, your family, or other people’s expectations. If you want to change and you want that change to last, you have to do it for yourself. When you feel hesitant to take a step towards reaching your goal or experience negative self-talk, ask yourself: Is this thought or action taking me towards the person I want to become? Act only on thoughts that align with the person you are becoming on your wellness journey. Consider your resolution a promise to yourself, and do everything you can to keep that promise! You deserve it.

GIA-Miami Team Resolutions

Here are some New Year’s resolutions that our team at GIA Miami will be making this year:

• I relax more by meditating five minutes per day.
• I will learn to focus on the present day by setting notifications on my phone to remind me to be present.
• I will prioritize going to bed earlier and sleeping more by setting an alarm to get ready for bed.
• I will go on three 30-minute runs per week.
• I will get professional help for my mental wellness by finding a therapist.
• I will try a new hobby that I have always wanted to try by signing up for a class to learn a new language.
• I will take a media holiday and not check my phone for one day per month.
• I will try breathwork and meditation for five minutes each day.
• I will write in a journal for five minutes each day.
• I will try to do something to help others at least once per day, even if it is just holding a door open.
• I will practice gratitude every day by writing down three things for which I am grateful.?
• I will be kind and practice not passing judgment on others and myself.
• I will avoid perfectionism by reminding myself every day that perfection is the enemy of “done.”

Promising to Improve Mental Wellness

One of the best resolutions we can set for ourselves is a promise to improve our mental wellness. Stress, depression and anxiety are running rampant through our society today. If you are dealing with anxiety or depression, try to set goals and identify concrete steps to address these conditions. Lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise, and relaxation or meditation practices can help. However, many times we benefit most from professional support to address these important mental health concerns.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Professional support can come in many forms, from talk therapy to medication to non-invasive treatments such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to improve the function of our mind and brain. At GIA-Miami, we have pioneered mental wellness techniques such as TMS to enhance cognitive function and alleviate suffering from mental health conditions. GIA-Miami offers comprehensive treatments for mental wellness that embrace a whole mind-brain-body approach. Our world-class team works with each client individually to develop a personally-tailored plan to optimize their mental wellness.

Give us a call 833.713.0828 today and let GIA-Miami help you set and achieve healthy New Year’s resolutions to reach your wellness goals.