The beginning of the new year presents a chance for self reflection and to identify opportunities to improve your life through wellness, and really consider your goals for the coming 12 months. Of course, you can choose to make a change anytime—but the fresh start of a new year is often a perfect time to make new changes that might stick.
We compiled 10 of the most important questions to ask yourself to promote radical self-awareness and help design 2023 to be your most fulfilling year yet.
1) What do you want most in the new year?
Sometimes we craft long lists of goals—exercising, losing weight, making money, pursuing the arts, and everything else we want in life. But we never seem to stick to those goals.
Instead choose one single goal as your focus. When you do that, you’re much more likely to stick to it.
Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.
Tony Robbins
But hey, even then, change can be hard. And that’s why, when things get difficult—when you’re stressed or tired or simply don’t have the energy to make a good choice—we tend to fall back into old habits.
So ask yourself, what joys or experiences will you be missing out on? This exercise can help boost your motivation and drive action to make your goals a reality.
2) How often do you feel stressed out?
Some stress in life is to be expected—especially in our fast-paced world. But if anxious and nervous describes your everyday mood, there’s a good chance you might benefit from some simple relaxation techniques.
Meditation and yoga are great options, as is taking CBD for its ability to help promote a sense of calm focus and help you enjoy life. Give these methods a try and see how you feel.
3) What can you change about your diet?
Want to reach or maintain a healthy weight without dieting? Losing weight is the most common New Year’s resolution for a reason: many of us want to look better, feel better, and be healthier. But first, it’s critical to understand what a healthy weight really looks like.
Many fad diets promote deprivation, which can stress the body and the mind in a way that’s unsustainable. Instead, seek to develop a diet that’s balanced, healthy, and compatible with your daily life. In the long run, it’s your health and wellness that are most important.
One of the best ways to achieve balanced weight goals is to assess your everyday routine. You don’t have to overhaul everything—just one small change, like cutting out sodas, can add up to big improvements over time.
It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort. And when you bring that effort every single day, that’s where transformation happens.
Jillian Michaels
One last thought on diet: if you’re the kind of person who tends to eat when you’re feeling stressed, consider adopting a meditation or yoga habit to help reduce stress and cortisol levels. Reducing stress can have many positive spillover effects into other areas of your life as well, such as improving mental well-being and improving sleep. Speaking of sleep…
4) How are you sleeping?
Sleep is one of the most underrated factors in our health and happiness. But we’ve all been there – when you don’t get enough sleep, you lack energy, motivation, focus, willpower, and more. But with a good night’s sleep every night, you’ll notice all of those things improve significantly.
5) How are your relationships?
Feeling loved by a loved one, be that a partner, a family member or friend, is an essential part of living a happy, meaningful life. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s easy to forget this and relationships fall to the wayside when things get busy.
We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.
Joyce Meyer
So take some time to think about your relationships with family, friends, children, and your significant other. Are those relationships strong and healthy? If so, how can you make sure they stay that way? If not, what can you do to turn things around?
Hint: you’ll never regret spending more quality time with loved ones.
6) Are you the person you want to be?
We’re not pulling any punches with this question! But try it – take a look in the mirror and take stock. Sure you may be successful at work or school, but are you having a positive impact on the lives of your family and friends?
Helping others is one of the most meaningful and rewarding things we can do in this life. So if you’re finding that your activities are mostly focused on yourself, consider whether you might want to spend a little more time working to help and build up the people around you.
7) Do you exercise enough?
Getting more exercise is another common goal. One question you may want to consider is, how much exercise do you actually need? Not everyone has the conditioning it takes to complete a rigorous workout 7 days a week—and depending on your goals, that might be overkill anyway. So align your goals with what you really want to achieve mentally and psychically. When you’re able to recover from workouts faster, you’ll want to get back out there faster too. The assistance in recovery can support you staying on track with a workout routine.
8) Are you being thoughtful about your time?
Your time on this earth is a gift. The book Four Thousand Weeks points out that an 80-year-old person has just 4,000 weeks to live. When you look at it that way, it’s a little easier to realize just how precious each week is!
Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
So really think about how you’re spending your time. Watching some TV can be a good way to unwind, for example, but if you’re glued to the screen for hours and hours then you could be pursuing more fulfilling activities.
You might consider tracking your time for a short while—say, a week—to really understand where your time is going. That way you can get a better idea of how you might want to reallocate the way you spend the remainder of your 4,000 weeks.
9) Are you seeing the world from different angles?
When we spend all our time in the same environment, day after day after day, it’s easy to get stuck in our perspectives and mindsets. That’s one reason why travel can be so good for our health and our minds!
Traveling to a new place can help us to see the world in a slightly different way. And when we return back home, some of that new perspective can carry over and help us to better deal with our everyday situations and problems.
And don’t worry, you don’t have to go halfway around the world to gain this benefit. Visiting other countries is great, but you can often have the same sort of mind-expanding experience by simply visiting a new area or making friends in a new neighborhood.
10) What new daily routine or habits should you incorporate?
Daily habits are like steps. It may not seem like they will get you far, but when you repeat them often enough, they can carry you to all sorts of amazing places. When thinking about your goals, ask yourself which daily habits will help you get to where you want to be.
Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
Warren Buffett
For instance, you might decide to…
- Wake up early to get a head-start on writing your book
- Stop at the gym on your way home from work to ensure you exercise regularly
- Turn off the TV at 8pm to help improve your sleep
- Prepare a batch of lunches on Sunday to encourage a healthier diet
These self-reflection questions are meant to achieve a deeper understanding of yourself. Once you have greater self awareness it will contribute to helping you plan for the new year. In our next installment of our series we go into how to design your new wellness plan, stay tuned!
