Resolving to Look After Yourself in 2024

It’s January 2024 and the time of year the people set New Year’s resolutions, with research by YouGov suggesting in the region of a third of young people and 16% of the total population will seek to do so. The most popular resolutions are to do more exercise and improve fitness, save money, lose weight, and improve diet. Interestingly perhaps there is quite a drop (50% or so) in popularity for the next tier of resolutions which include less time of social media, career ambitions, a new hobby, more time with family and friends and volunteering or charity work (although it may be people feel they have the last two already sorted). Least popular by quite a way are giving up smoking and cutting down drinking (that says something about the stress coping mechanisms people resort to in modern life). 

How people stick to the resolutions is also an interesting picture. About 31% of those that made resolutions claim to have kept them all, 50% say they have kept some of them but only 16% confess to having failed in all (what the missing 3% think is anyone’s guess).

It’s always dispiriting when you set goals and life gets in the way. That’s why it’s critical to think about how you want to live and experience the year ahead in a way that prioritises what’s important to you. Rather than undermining confidence by setting goals you may struggle to keep, especially if they reflect the perceived expectations of others or society at large (extrinsic factors), build your self-esteem by focusing on meeting your intrinsic needs. 

A simple step to take is to seek to apply, as often as you can in your daily life throughout the year, the advice of the Public Health Agency’s Take 5 Steps to Wellbeing initiative. The simple five steps are designed to improve health and well-being and can be more about how you approach things you are already doing. They are:

1. Connect: Connect with the people around you: family, friends, colleagues and neighbours at home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these relationships as the cornerstones of your life and spend time developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day. 
2. Be active: Go for a walk or run, cycle, play a game, garden or dance. Exercising makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity that you enjoy; one that suits your level of mobility and fitness. 
3. Take notice: Stop, pause, or take a moment to look around you. What can you see, feel, smell or even taste? Look for beautiful, new, unusual or extraordinary things in your everyday life and think about how that makes you feel. 
4. Keep learning: Don’t be afraid to try something new, rediscover an old hobby or sign up for a course. Take on a different responsibility, fix a bike, learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy. Learning new things will make you more confident, as well as being fun to do. 
5. Give: Do something nice for a friend or stranger, thank someone, smile, volunteer your time or consider joining a community group. Look out as well as in. Seeing yourself and your happiness linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and will create connections with the people around you. 

Positive Steps Outdoors will soon be publicising a programme of walks in the natural environment, with mindfulness techniques-based coaching included, for this Spring and Summer. We are happy to admit that the construct of our events is very much based on delivering the five steps above. So why not join one of our events where you will get to connect with people, be active in stunning locations, take notice of the flora and fauna and keep learning about the environment and history. You can even choose to volunteer with us and on some walks, through a partnership with charities, we are able to support others to give something back.