Here’s some advice, tips, and an on-campus resource that can help you set your 2024 resolutions
As you get ready to ring in the new year, you may find yourself struggling to come up with new year’s resolutions or avoiding them all together. Some of you may have even come up with too many. So let’s break down how to tackle these problems so you can head into 2024 with new year’s resolutions that you’re excited about!
The first part of making new year’s resolutions is figuring out what your resolutions, or goals, are going to be. This may seem obvious, but it can get pretty complicated. You might find yourself wondering what your goals should be about and how many you should set. To help answer these questions, the University of Guelph’s Successful Habits in Education program, (USHINE), have provided some insightful tips.
The USHINE program is a peer-to-peer mentor program that helps students set, work towards, and achieve their wellness related goals. Students can expect to be paired up with a trained peer mentor in one-on-one meetings throughout the semester.
“Overall, our goal is to increase student’s confidence and give them the resources they need to be able to achieve their goals [and] reach their potential,” said Nikita Alwin, a senior peer mentor for the USHINE program. “Some of the areas we provide support are things like nutrition, sleep, physical wellness [and] self-care.”
If you’re struggling with what goals to make, try brainstorming ones that stem from the areas that Alwin mentioned. Another tip is to start with just one goal, so that you don’t overwhelm yourself. A benefit to this is that a lot of the time when we set and accomplish one goal, it can motivate us to set more goals.
“If you just pick one and focus on it, it will end up having an impact on the other areas of your life that you want to improve on, just naturally,” explained Rebecca Skelton, the USHINE program supervisor.
When making a goal, aim for it to be a SMART goal, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-targeted.
“So we want to set something small and specific and you want to set a goal that you know is attainable for you and then work your way up to things that are more complex,” Caitlin Duthie, another senior peer mentor for the USHINE program, explained. “We also make a point to encourage students to track their progress.”
Duthie participated in the USHINE program during her first year of university with a goal of wanting to exercise more frequently. With the help of her peer mentor, she set a more specific and attainable goal of walking for 30 minutes, three times a week.
“I found since then, I’ve been able to implement going outside more… and it made me start to enjoy going for walks,” Duthie said. “I think that doing that with my peer [mentor] was really helpful for me to start the habit of just moving my body.”
Remember that the goals you set are your goals, you want them to be enjoyable for you and to add positively to your life, like how it did for Duthie. This will also make it easier to stay motivated to accomplish your goals because there’s a less likely chance that it’ll feel like a chore.
“If your goal is attached to a ‘should,’ that’s probably a clear indication that there’s some sort of external factor or focus at play,” explained Dr. Julia McArthur, clinical psychologist and University of Guelph professor. “Whereas if you can say ‘I want to,’ there’s a better likelihood that that’s coming from within you, from a values-based place within you and that there’s more likelihood that you’re going to stay motivated.”
Sometimes though, as you work towards accomplishing a goal, you may find that it doesn’t align with your wants anymore. McArthur poses some great questions to get us thinking about this:
“The real irony of setting goals is that we’re setting goals to create change for ourselves, right? And so as we evolve, wouldn’t it make sense that our goals would evolve with us?” she said.
Try to keep these questions in mind as you make your way through the new year because you may find that your goals no longer relate to what you want and ultimately aren’t serving their original purpose anymore, and that’s okay!
Setting goals shouldn’t be a cause for stress, rather it should be a time when you set attainable and exciting challenges for yourself that you may not have had the time or energy to do before. Your goals may change over time and you might even ditch some, both of which are part of the process. Most importantly, give yourself compassion, be flexible and have fun as you set your new year’s resolutions!