With the dawn of the new year, it is an opportunity to start reflecting on a better version of yourself. Although the cynics opt out of participating in the resolving movement, research does show that 49% of resolvers still stick to their goals for 6 months in the new year. Not bad odds if you are desiring a powerful shift in your life – so why wouldn’t you even attempt at change?

Working for almost two decades in the area of natural health, being a Naturopathic Doctor, is a challenging role.  My job is to encourage and educate patients to surrender delicious foods (sugar, alcohol, gluten, processed foods, etc.), exercise more, sleep better, and manage stress and practice self-compassion while recognize self-limiting beliefs that are holding us back from ultimate healing. Easy right?

If we look at most wellness new year goals – many involve the rules of “more or less” e.g. move more, eat less; sleep more, scroll less. You get my drift.  We will often also tag a metric to our resolution: lose 20 lbs, run a marathon, get 8 hours of sleep. These goals involve a result – a finish-line of sorts. But once we achieve that marathon, we may default back to our old selves of late-night chip eating and hit snooze in the morning, and no longer go out for that early morning run.

Perhaps this year, instead of a finish-line goal, pick a habit. Our habits are what helps us to form our identities and therefore create transformative behaviours, which not only help us to reach our goals, but to maintain and sustain them. Even when we have deviated from our behaviours that we set out to achieve, if we identify with them as our core values, we can return to them no matter if it’s been a glutenous weekend or many months off course.

Envisioning who you want to be this year can be powerful. Rather than focusing on the outcomes that you want for 2025, manifest the traits that you require to build the identity that you desire.

For example:

  • The goal is not to run a marathon, but rather, become a runner.
  • The goal is not to lose 20 lbs, but to be the person who is able to move their body without restriction.
  • The goal is not to get 10 000 steps per day, but to be the type of person that always takes the stairs not the escalator.
  • The goal is not to quit sugar, but to be the person who chooses healthy nourishment, most of the time.

Our passions and ambitions can get swallowed up by our careers, family life, or other day-to-day busyness. The cognitive load of managing households, car pools for the kids, dentist appointments, and the dreaded “what’s for dinner?” question is enough to derail us from our own personal goals and chip away at our resolve. Even if you have had days of being “successful” in your health attempts, one slip up can become a mental avalanche of the self-defeating thoughts that you will never be successful. The inner critic takes over and then you quit. 2025 goals are lost forever, until your next failed attempt.

You may find that you shy away from trying to make change for fear of failure or are paralyzed by perfectionism. You need the most aerodynamic bike before starting to bike ride, or require the best orthopedic shoes before you start walking, or you have to read just a few more nutrition books before you start a weight-loss journey.  I call this the over-analysis paralysis. Sometimes, knowledge is not power. Information is a tool that helps us to navigate forward, and we need to wear and try on what works and fits our lives to maintain sustainability.

For women, new year’s resolutions may not feel reachable. Hormone changes can affect the body – creating increase weight gain, major sleep disruption, body pain, fatigue and mood changes. She may feel that she has lost herself in middle age. My clients that are in her forties and fifties discuss a yearning of returning to her “old” self, but are unable to access the energy or motivation to maintain her old self-care routines. Many women experience a layer of complexity with perimenopause and menopause, thus making changes feel overwhelming impossible due to the lack of sleep, hot flashes, brain fog and low energy that arrives with hormonal chaos, to do-what-it-takes to make a shift in our lives.

Sticking to healthy habits for sustainable and long-lasting results is a difficult endeavour, especially when our habits sprout from lives which is an ecosystem of constant change. You may be tempted to throw up our hands and surrender, and stick with your default behaviour. But do not be mislead that by staying stagnant in your behaviours, your health status is NOT maintaining status quo. Your health is worsening. Visceral fat continues to accumulate, brain, cardiovascular and metabolic changes continue with aging, joint health continue to decline, and muscles continue to atrophy.  You may not feel the change, but change is happening at a cellular level. Aging and cellular changes can be symptomatically invisible such as high blood pressure and osteoporosis. Perhaps the mental landscape is to keep failing in your attempts of change, rather than to shy away from trying at all.

I encourage you to take an active role in participating the changes you want because whether or not you choose to make health changes, change is inevitable. Practise empathy and compassion for your failed attempts. Keep your habit changes small and consistent. Remember, as long as you are alive, you have a responsibility to take care of this glorious vessel that you are living in.

Love it, nourish it, restore it. Forgive. Dirt off your shoulder, and get up and journey forward. You are all you have in this lifetime.

If you are struggling to stay true to your 2025 habits, try on this mantra:

I can. I will. I am.

Thank you for allowing us to be part of your change and healing. Our team is always here to help you heal.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

With kindness,

Dr. Mary

Xxx