Not New Year’s Resolutions, Just New Wellbeing Habits!
Happy New Year to you all!
I hope that you’ve had a wonderful time celebrating over the festive season and if you haven’t, I wish that 2024 brings you lots of joy and happiness.
I always love the start of a new year. It provides a fresh opportunity to a whole new chapter; where you can bring in the best from the past year and get rid of what didn’t serve you well, by leaving it behind.
It’s a great moment to pause and reflect - and if needed - get you back on track and stay focused on those goals and dreams that you want to experience in the future.
Over the years I used to make lots of New Year’s resolutions and then ended up feeling disappointed with myself as I didn’t always keep up with them. Each New Year I had great ambitions to get fitter or loose weight. However, I felt that by creating resolutions on the 1st of January it just set me up for failure as many were just broken within the first few days as it was a time, I should’ve just spent relaxing, recharging and enjoying the remaining holidays I had with friends and family.
These days I’ve realised that this stage of the year for myself, isn’t about exercise or diets but a time for me to rest, recharge and reflect on the past year, whilst also get motivated and organised with my life and work.
January now for me is a time to envision what I want to do over the next 12 months and sort out any remaining things that got put off at the end of last year when December was all busy.
Don’t get me wrong I still have healthy intentions and plans for 2024. However, these are more new wellbeing habits that are more simple easy steps for me to take throughout the year rather than a big quick fix resolution; so that I can remain consistent in my new wellness plans and feel under no great pressure with, so that they stay with me for the long term.
Last blog I spoke about starting off 2023 by going to see Roxie Nafousi the Queen of Manifesting and this year I’m starting the year off with another vision board of what my hopes and dreams are for this year. I love how empowering it feels creating the vision you want to see for your future. Rather than just one big resolution of giving up something or loosing 10lbs!
Mine is definitely one designed around enjoying life, living it to its fullest and being happy and healthy with the journey I’m on.
On being intentional with my plans throughout the year and focusing in on how I want to feel and create I tend to now achieve them with having them all mapped out.
I totally recommend trying it and if you’re new to creating a vision board, reading Roxie’s book Manifest is a great place to start!
How would you like to see your 2024? Do you have dreams of travelling more? Or would you like to feel calmer throughout your life? Or is it that you’d like to have more energy?
If a vision board feels too much, you can start small by just visualising one thing you’d like to do or feel in 2024. Once you’ve thought about what that is then think about how you’re going to get there and what small steps you can take to help you achieve this goal or feeling.
Make sure to make it small and measurable; then you can build on from there so it’s not overwhelming.
If you’ve been wanting to feel calmer, one simple method could be to introduce a moment to meditate each morning before you start the day and then note down how you feel afterwards. This way at the end of each week you can see in your journal how the mediation practice is helping you. The mediation can be as little as a few minutes, but this small step could make a huge impact on your day and by keeping consistent throughout the whole year you could really notice a big change in your wellbeing and have found that 2024 was your calmest year yet!
Meditation is a simple wellbeing habit that I brought into my life since starting this wellness journey I’ve been on since qualifying as a clinical reflexologist. It’s a great tool to help calm and destress both the mind and body, just like reflexology can. Best of all you can do it pretty much anywhere and you can do it for just a few minutes or for hours at a time.
A really lovely free 30 days of meditation that I love and is great for anyone new to meditation, is within the Head Plan app and is by the beautiful Julie Skon @julieskon.
Meditating maybe isn’t your thing, so it could be taking an hour out of each week to do something just for you. Whether that’s booking in for an hours reflexology session or taking the time out to go for a long walk along the beach. Just make sure to carve out the time in your day or week and put it in the diary; then make a note of how you felt afterwards. This way you can track the impact it’s making into your daily life.
I’d love to know if you are setting any intentions for 2024? Do you like to create vision boards already? Or have I inspired you to try making your own one this year? Let me know by emailing me and telling me your new habits or what you’re looking forward to in 2024! I’d love to hear from you!
Hoping that 2024 will be the most fabulous year for us all!
Much Love Shona x
