By Brian Wingfield, LMFT
A healthy way to look at the new year is to view it as an opportunity for a fresh start and new beginnings in your life. This is a good time to take a moment to press pause and make a mental inventory about your life and assess what potential changes that you would like to make.
Being able to achieve attainable goals allows you to build confidence and momentum verses feeling discouraged and perhaps even defeated with struggling to accomplish a daunting goal you have set for yourself. Also, to continue to keep things positive, it is important to allow yourself grace and flexibility during those times when situations come up in life that temporarily prevent or delay you from moving forward.
Another way to refocus on the positive is to reframe failure from “I have not succeeded” to “this will help me grow.” This allows us to view failure as a learning experience and an opportunity to make progress in life. Learning to embrace our failures as opportunities for growth is a way of viewing life that is both encouraging and promoting mental wellness. Life is about the journey and striving for progress and not expecting the unrealistic and unattainable goal of perfection.
Another thing to avoid is comparing yourself to others. Practicing good mental health is working on improving ourselves and not viewing what we are doing as being in competition with others. With all of this in mind, here are some tips for setting your attainable goals.
A fresh start needs purpose and direction. Here are some categories to evaluate while you are making your mental inventory: emotional, social, and physical (i.e. ESP).
For emotional you want to assess your emotional health to determine how you have recently been feeling. For social you want to ask yourself about the relationships in your life and how they have been going. For physical you want to be honest with yourself about your body and your health to see if there are any changes you would like to make to improve yourself.
Keep in mind you are not limited to these categories, they are suggestions. Also, remember, no matter what you decide to focus on, set goals that are attainable. If after doing your mental inventory you feel you need to schedule a visit with a counselor about the changes you would like to make in your life, please contact Samaritan Center at: 432-563-4144.
