New Year, Same You: A Guide for Healthy Resolutions

The new year is a clean slate, a chance to set intentions and try new ways of caring for yourself, your body, your aspirations, your relationships, your career… And yet, we’re all familiar with those feelings of shame and disappointment when we fall short of our resolutions. Self-compassion often takes a backseat to the goal we’re trying to achieve, and before we know it, we’ve failed to keep up with the rigorous diet and exercise routine, or trying to stay sober, and we’re deep in shame about it.

Now that we’re several days into 2024, it’s a good time to check in and make sure the goals we’re setting feel attainable. If you’re looking for guidance on how to meet this new year with hope for improving our lives in meaningful and lasting ways, here are a few therapy-based tips.

Why We Fail at New Year’s Resolutions

The thing about new years and resolutions is that we are still our same human selves, facing the same familiar stressors as last year (which was just days or weeks ago). What we know from decades of psychology studies on human behavior is that the more rigid and unrealistic our expectations for ourselves, the harder time we will have meeting those expectations – and caring for ourselves when we fall short.

This can create a vicious cycle of failure and shame:

• We set a resolution that we have a hard time living up to,

• Then we fail and feel angry and ashamed of ourselves,

• Then we double-down on our efforts, but still fall short

• Then we feel incapable and struggle with self-esteem, so we stop trying to achieve the resolution—or any resolution at all. (Meta-emotional cycles can exacerbate this.)

When we’re caught in this cycle, tapping into self-compassion and care becomes extremely difficult. The more ashamed we feel, the less likely we are to reach out to anyone for support, and loneliness becomes another factor that can worsen these feelings of shame and inadequacy.

How to Get Out of the Shame Cycle of Failed New Year’s Resolutions

Okay, so you set a goal that you couldn’t live up to, for one reason or another. Now what? You could scrap the whole idea of doing anything differently this year and just accept that you’re not capable of change, or… you could tap into self-compassion. One way to move forward with self-compassion and find hope with your new year resolutions is to honor your motivations while adjusting your goals. You’re self-aware enough to know that the way you’ve been doing things isn’t how you want to keep doing them. Honor your desire for change. But how that change can look is fluid and you have the agency to adjust your goals and strategies in a way that feels more comfortable and attainable.

The moment when we fail to follow our resolution or achieve the goal is a moment to check in with ourselves and reflect on our actions and feelings without judgment. What is our intuition telling us?

For example, let’s say your new year’s goal is to lose a certain amount of weight by following a strict nutrition plan you found online and go to the gym every weekday morning at 6AM. When you fail to either achieve the number on the scale or follow through with the routine, you could double-down by trying harder and being more strict with your habits, or you could take a moment to check in with your body’s needs and reflect on the motivation behind your resolution. Are you full or hungry? Do you need to rest, or do you have the urge to move? Do you want to change your diet and exercise habits because you want to be healthier, or because you’re self-conscious about the number on the scale? What would it look like to honor your desire for change, while also honoring your body’s needs?

Approach the New Year with Mindfulness

We’re all going to encounter moments this year where we’re disappointed with ourselves, ashamed of the ways we’re falling short, worried that we’re not capable of all that we hoped. Mindfulness is a really effective therapeutic tool that you can access in those tricky emotional moments to stop shame in its tracks, access self-compassion, and find a way forward. There are many different mindfulness strategies that can help regulate your emotions, but all of them involve some form of pausing when we feel emotionally dysregulated (anxious, frustrated, depressed), engaging the five senses to reconnect with our bodies, taking a moment to notice our emotions and investigate what triggered them, and moving forward with self-compassion.

Getting Support to Create Meaningful Change

Making meaningful, lasting change in your life is hard work! You don’t have to do it alone. If you’re struggling to form goals and find strategies for change that feel healthy and effective, therapy can help. You can talk with a therapist about what your hopes are, what your obstacles are, and find a path forward that feels right for you. At ECC, our diverse, multidisciplinary team of therapists can help you create a life that makes you feel happy and whole. Change is possible.

About ECC:

Empowered Connections Counseling is a practice of licensed therapists providing quality, multidisciplinary counseling for adults, children & teens, relationships, and families in Chicago and across Illinois. Whether by in-person session or via telehealth, we work with clients to find the therapist and treatment methods that best suit their needs. Connect meaningfully with your life by booking an appointment today.

Meta-Emotions: Having Feelings about your Feelings

Picture This

Two friends Paul and Marty are out for a coffee catching up about life and work. At some point near the end of their catch up, Marty mentions a recent promotion - a promotion Paul himself had been vying for as well (unbeknownst to Marty). This sparked immediate jealousy in Paul. Slowly after his initial glimmer of envy, Paul quickly began to become angry toward himself for feeling jealous, which spirals him into self-shame and deeper despair. He thinks to himself, ”how can I be feeling this way? I am such a “bad friend”.”

Do you envision this moment and think to yourself, “wow I can relate”? Yep, us too! We refer to this scenario as an example of meta-emotions or having emotions about our emotions.

Let’s Break this Down

Paul’s initial emotion of jealousy -> led him to react to that emotion with another emotion -> leaving Paul angry at himself for feeling jealous.

Another common example is panic, which is often the outcome of anxiety, about anxiety. Associated symptoms of panic ensues -> you begin to notice your symptoms setting in -> therefore causing more anxiety over your panic. 

Meta-emotions often lead to greater distress and dysregulation. All the while the original, primary emotion is unattended to - making matters worse. We know, it can feel like a vicious cycle.

So What Do You do?

First identify what is happening. Simply pausing to name the experience creates awareness and opportunity to intervene. Insight is power. Meta-emotions can be tricky and deceptive - name it. 

Second, find acceptance and compassion towards the initial feeling. While you may not always agree with your emotional experience, it is here with you no matter how hard you try to change it. This practice allows that first emotion to flow through more quickly. Emotional acceptance meditation expert Tara Brach offers this statement, “I consent to this feeling being here with me”.

I imagine Paul would be able to more effectively move through his jealousy with less shame and turmoil through a compassionate journey of acceptance toward his jealousy. We believe you can too. A final suggestion, take the time to explore any meta experiences to gain awareness and prepare for the next time they come back around. Check out these reflective questions to help guide you!

Reflective questions:

What meta-emotional cycles do you find in your life?

How do you know you are experiencing a meta-emotional cycle? What does that look like?What feels hard about that emotion? Is there an origin story there?

What has helped you to manage this experience?